One of my main problems with anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theories, as expounded by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and others, is that the increase in carbon dioxide in the ice-core record lags temperature by at least 800 years.
In other words, the long term record over 600,000 or so years, and numerous ice ages and interglacial warm periods, indicates that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have, until now, always increased after temperature.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png
This point is disputed by neither AGW believer nor skeptics.
Given that historically, carbon dioxide does not appear to have been a driver of climate change, why would we expect it to be a driver now?
So, I was interested in the explanation in ‘The acquittal of carbon dioxide’ which is a rather long blog post by Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD, that even includes an abstract:
“Throughout the past 420 millennia, comprising four interglacial periods, the Vostok record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is imprinted with, and fully characterized by, the physics of the solubility of CO2 in water, along with the lag in the deep ocean circulation. Notwithstanding that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, atmospheric carbon dioxide has neither caused nor amplified global temperature increases.
Increased carbon dioxide has been an effect of global warming, not a cause.
Technically, carbon dioxide is a lagging proxy for ocean temperatures. When global temperature, and along with it, ocean temperature rises, the physics of solubility causes atmospheric CO2 to increase. If increases in carbon dioxide, or any other greenhouse gas, could have in turn raised global temperatures, the positive feedback would have been catastrophic. While the conditions for such a catastrophe were present in the Vostok record from natural causes, the runaway event did not occur. Carbon dioxide does not accumulate in the atmosphere. [end of quote]
And what about this little illustration:
Jeffery Glassman describes it as:
“Several processes are simultaneously underway in the Carbon Dioxide Stream … Superimposed on a latitude–temperature graph is the solubility curve (shown without its ordinate axis). Solubility gets a shaded thickness to suggest the temperature dependent potential to absorb or release CO2 everywhere.
The atmosphere is a cloud to portray the global mixing of atmospheric gases by the winds.
The CO2 exchange should occur to some extent distributed over the surface of the ocean. It should also occur focused by the ocean’s meridional overturning circulation, also known as the thermohaline circulation, and popularly called a conveyor belt. The circulation descends at the poles and rises to touch the surface dominantly in the Indian Ocean and the Eastern Pacific. When the belt rises to the surface, the current is saturated with CO2 because of the rising temperature and falling pressure. It is ripe to release the gas. [end of quote]
Read the complete blog post here: http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/co2_acquittal.html
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Fascinating; more interesting though was “Schmidt” on the Acquittal. What a load of old cobblers…
Apparently in the early to mid 1990s, the internet started becoming popular. This was well before internet applications such as blogs, youtube, online advertising, and ebay were popularised.
We can therefore conclude that applications such as blogs and youtube and other possibilities offered by the internet have had NO impact on the growing popularity of using the internet, because the internet was becoming popular before these applications were introduced. (DUH?)
———
It is not a flight of fancy, or a leap in conjecture to suggest that temperature rise initially caused an increase in CO2, and the subsequent increase in CO2 led to an increase in temperature, more water vapor in the atmosphere, and yet more temperature rise, only to be reversed by the earth wobbling on its axis (or whatever) back to a colder position.
The world can be *and is* that complex. It might be nice if cause and effect was always a one way process, but its not. Get used to it.
Steve, if a theory has to be stretched to the point that cause and effect must be switched at some arbitrary point, doesn’t that suggest the theory has a weakness?
So many shonkies – such little time. Alas Jeffrey Glassman seems to pop up in all the right denialist places. Obviously gets around.
Sigh – not getting much better Jen.
Yawn.
Nothing new and why bother posting the demolition when it’s already been done by another (below). Perhaps David Archibald can help get him published?
http://www.crossfit.com/mt-archive2/001475.html
Kalen M. #5 wrote a nice succinct response, so I feel silly posting my monstrosity now. But I wasted the evening typing it up, so here goes anyway 🙂
This essay (I don’t deign call it a “publication”) is rife with straw-man attacks, and misrepresentations of climate science. The Introduction, and the section labeled “Climatologists’s view of vostok data” invent a story of how climate scientists hid, or ignored, the fact that CO2 lagged temperature, but then when “other analysts” revealed the lagging, climate scientists quickly jumped in with the “amplification” defense. Of course, none of this other than the final reference to amplification is cited, because it’s all a complete fabrication. Why do AGW “skeptics” have to tell themselves stories to make themselves feel better?
Now, granted, I have seen some *popular* publications that claim the correlation between CO2 and temperature in the historical record is proof of the greenhouse effect of CO2. But never any actual up-to-date *scientific* publications. There’s a distinction.
Another observation I had is that several quotes are taken out of context, and used in a sense so at odds with their original meaning that the author just comes across as sloppy. For example, the RealClimate quote saying that CO2 doesn’t come from the ocean (and making it seem like Realclimate is a bunch of wankers considering all the other quotes that say it does) is talking about the *recent spike in CO2*, not the historical Vostok data. In fact, Realclimate states that the ocean can exchange CO2 with the atmosphere, but that it’s been sinking over the last 100 years or so (*not* that it’s always been sinking, as Glassman implies they say).
Anyway, he spends most of the essay going to great lengths to show that CO2 really does lag temperature. But as above, this has never been in dispute. See http://icebubbles.ucsd.edu/CaillonTermIII.pdf
But he also tries to make the point that the CO2 is *entirely* dependent on the ocean, and not other sources such as the land biosphere. Why he wants to prove this is beyond me (maybe to show how climate scientists are just _so_ wrong?), but his methods are fishy: He basically vertically scales and shifts, and then horizontally shifts the solubility curve to an arbitrary extent to show that it “fits” the vostok temperatures. That makes this comparison next to useless. Any slightly-downward-curving line could be “fit” to the data using this method.
Also, the solubility curve he starts with is a 5th-order best-fit itself. The fact that it supposedly fits the Vostok data “better” than the author’s own 5th-order curve done from scratch (figure 22) really casts doubt on the author’s mathematical methods. By definition, the 5th-order best fit curve will fit the data better than any other 5th or lower order curve. Whatever method he is using to calculate which curve fits “best” is erroneous.
Now after all this, he never gets back around to proving, or even addressing, his most important claim — that the climatologist “defense,” that CO2 has an amplifying effect, is bogus. All he offers is that the climate never ran away to catastrophe, so the CO2 couldn’t have had any effect. But this isn’t what climatologists are claiming. The claim is, instead, that these hot periods (caused by external factors such as solar variation) lasted a _lot_ longer than they should have, and got hotter than they should have, and the reason was CO2 greenhouse causing a positive feedback with the temperature. In other words, without CO2, these hot periods would have still happened, but they would have been shorter and cooler. ( http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13 )
And feedback can occur without it being catastrophic, as any engineer knows — it’s called nonlinear feedback.
Basically, the way I see it, there’s 4 “pillars” to the current AGW theory, none of which has been cut down by any of these “skeptics” so far:
1) Our knowledge of chemistry and atmospherics predicts CO2 as a GHG
2) The past climate record is consistent with CO2 amplifying the temperature rises
3) There has never been an independent event causing CO2 to rise before temperature, until now. And it’s rising a _lot_.
4) Temperature now is beginning to rise as would be predicted from CO2-GHG models.
Anyway, back to the essay. It’s kind of amusing that he refers to this as the “discovery” that the ocean solubility caused CO2 cycles. There’s already mounds of scientific studies done on the ocean’s interaction with climate, and he does a simple excel data fit and thinks he’s discovered a new, simpler mechanism? This reminds me of “skeptics” who “discover” that the grand canyon was made by the biblical flood, or that quantum physics is wrong and electrons are just spinning discs of charge ( http://www.commonsensescience.org )
He states with absolutely no evidence: “Since there is no difference between manmade and natural CO2, anthropogenic CO2 is sure to meet the same fate.” But manmade CO2 is being released at a much higher rate than any natural CO2 ever has, and by all current climate models, the natural CO2 sinks cannot keep up with it, and it *will* accumulate, and in fact already *is*.
Finally, the piece ends with a bunch of unsupported straw-man attacks and misrepresentations against climate modelling that’s so dense that it’s really not worth attempting to counter every half-hearted “skeptical” claim that’s stuck in there (The word “forcing” appearing in the titles means GCM’s are invalid? What the hell? Does glassman even know what a climate forcing *is*? Look it up on wikipedia, man!) Here he writes another fabricated story, this time of how climate scientists destroyed perfectly good GCMs in despearate attempts to prove AGW and exclude contradicting data. Right. Glassman apparently thinks his audience is too dumb to come to their own conclusions, so he warns you that the three papers he cites are “rocket science” and then shoves his conclusions down your throat as if they’re fact. I really need to see some hard evidence before I buy that there are *no* GCMs in use today that ignore the ocean, as he claims. In fact, I would wager that most of the things he says that climatologists “need” to do — they’re _already doing_.
“He states with absolutely no evidence: “Since there is no difference between manmade and natural CO2, anthropogenic CO2 is sure to meet the same fate.” But manmade CO2 is being released at a much higher rate than any natural CO2 ever has, and by all current climate models, the natural CO2 sinks cannot keep up with it, and it *will* accumulate, and in fact already *is*.”
It’s like watching a merry go round. The same old horse with the painted on leer just keeps coming around and around all over again.
If the deniers could all just get together, it would be easier to address the same old arguments with the same old rebuttals.
The IPCC exists, can’t someone organise an IPNCC or something. Can’t be the UN, though, since everyone knows how bad they are :(.
Science has historically made many great leaps of progress through mavericks progressing what often appear to be maverick ideas. Of course it can be a fine line between genuine and madness. But why would you want to even try and organise them?
While I can see some of the limitations and problems with Glassman’s blog post, I enjoyed all his graphs and I think I learnt something.
jen – this guy ain’t no science maverick – it’s a straight up political hit. Check out his background ! That’s not to say that political type are not entitled a science opinion. Free USA – free speech and all that.
Jen – Of course if we’re interested in learning something and given Glassman’s high interest in Hansen and Schmidt we could ponder Gavin Schmidt’s recent comments in an RC passing comment.
“[Response: During the ice age cycles, it was mostly likely a lag. The degree of that lag is actually quite uncertain and there is recent paper under review that suggests with good reason that it is less than the 800 years seen in the Caillon et al study. At other points in the past, such as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (55 million years ago), it looks like the CO2 (or possibly CH4) lead. Over very long timescales (millions of years) the overall level of CO2 (driven by weathering/geologic balances) probably lead – and is hypothesised to have contributed to the onset of the Quaternary ice age cycle in the first place. – gavin]”
Full paper here: http://icebubbles.ucsd.edu/Publications/CaillonTermIII.pdf
So not all climate cycles are created equal.
“Catastrophic releases of methane gas from hydrates (clathrates) have the potential to cause rapid climate changes. Today, methane hydrates are stored along continental margins (i.e. at intermediate water depths, from 250 m to several thousand meters water depth), where they are stabilized by water pressure and temperature. Methane hydrates may become unstable under influence of ocean warming or slope instability1-2. The estimated present-day reservoir of carbon stored in methane hydrates1,3 is about 10,000 Gt (giga ton), which is a substantial amount compared to 38,000 Gt carbon stored in the oceans, 2000 Gt in soils and plants, and 730 Gt in the atmosphere4 . This implies that instability of these hydrates and the subsequent release of methane gas into the atmosphere could potentially cause strong climatic warming through an enhancement of the greenhouse effect.
The Paleocene/Eocene thermal maximum (PETM, ~55.5 Million years ago) is a well-known example from the past of a period with drastic climate change due to massive releases of methane from hydrates5-6. Carbon isotope measurements in ocean cores with sediments from the PETM suggest that 1500-2000 Gt of methane carbon was released within a few thousand years5,7-9. This massive methane release had a profound effect on climate. Paleoceanographical evidence from ocean cores indicates that ocean temperatures increased abruptly by 1°C to up to 8°C, depending on the location10-11. It has also been suggested that large temperature swings during the last glacial have been caused by abrupt releases of methane hydrates12-13. In addition, there is growing concern that the expected future global warming may lead to hydrate instability and thus to an enhanced emission of methane, imposing a strong positive feedback that amplifies anthropogenic warming. It is thus very important to quantify the impact of such a methane hydrate scenario on the climate system.”
This period was also associated with a mass extinction event. Of course contrarians will sigh and say “oh well the Earth’s still here”. indeed it is – minus a few 100,000 species.
Of course maybe the whole lag thing is a furphy anyway. Imagine that !
http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/cp/cpd/3/435/cpd-3-435.pdf
Luke, I didn’t see your link to who Glassman is? And can you just confirm that you are a scientist with no political affiliations?
I didn’t provide any links but can do. And as always Jen to your last point my opinions are my own as a citizen. Don’t belong to any NGOs or political parties nor am I representing their views. I’m discussing political corruption of AGW science re this post and in line with your blog core theme ?
Such a marvelous discussion.
Among the ‘terms of the art,’ we see, “old cobblers,” “denialist” and “shonkies,” Surely this inspires many to believe that dedicated head-scratching occurs here, rather than the hurling of verbal offal.
And once again, SJT reveals himself to be impervious to facts: one fact he finds it convenient to deny is that non-anthro CO2 is rising exponentially faster than CO2 from fossil fuels.
Atmo CO2 from fossil fuels is about 4 percent of all CO2, and all the rest is ballooning.
Maybe SJT is a nature denialist. Just a suggestion, not an accusation, such as being an “old cobbler denialist shonk.” Maybe he’s a young cobbler denialist shonk instead.
But how would I know?
“Steve, if a theory has to be stretched to the point that cause and effect must be switched at some arbitrary point, doesn’t that suggest the theory has a weakness?”
It’s not an arbitrary point. It’s the point at which it happens, by observation. We have observed the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere change, and the temperature has gone up.
CO2 can act as a forcing, and a feedback. How? It depends on the conditions of the climate at that point in time. At present, CO2 and climate were relatively stable. We are doubling the concentration, and taking the climate to a new state, (which has existed before). We are doing this in a timespan which is extremely short, in geological terms.
Why is the Mauna Loa CO2 level taken as the atmosphere’s true reading? Are readings taken elsewhere?
It seems a bit like taking global temperature using one station.
Yes I know CO2 is “well mixed”. A few more stations would demonstrate this. Do they exist?
SJT, I was referring to the ice core data. No one “observed” the temperature and CO2, it is inferred from the ice cores. And apparently the CO2 increase came after the temperature rise, by 100s to 1000s of years.
Of course the picture is complicated by pressure effects, drilling compounds and Siple curve “corrections”.
Recently published by the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/6460635.stm
“Two leading UK climate researchers say some of their peers are “overplaying” the global warming message and risk confusing the public about the threat.
Professors Paul Hardaker and Chris Collier, both Royal Meteorological Society figures, are voicing their concern at a conference in Oxford.
They say some researchers make claims about possible future impacts that cannot be justified by the science.
The pair believe this damages the credibility of all climate scientists…
…As an example, they point to a recent statement from one of the foremost US science bodies – the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
The association released a strongly worded statement at its last annual meeting in San Francisco in February which said: “As expected, intensification of droughts, heatwaves, floods, wildfires, and severe storms is occurring, with a mounting toll on vulnerable ecosystems and societies.
“These events are early warning signs of even more devastating damage to come, some of which will be irreversible.”
According to Professors Hardaker and Collier, this may well turn out to be true, but convincing evidence to back the claims has not yet emerged..”
There are a number of errors in the climate cadre’s defence of their ideological interpretaion of ice cores.
1 that the initial warming was produced by orbital change which then gave way to CO2 amplification of warming.
But the orbital warming is not a once only event. The warming phase is half of a 26,000 year cycle and the scale of the observed warming is generally consistent with the scope of orbital change.
2 that combined CO2 and CH4 levels directly match changes in temperature (as claimed by luke in the past on this blog).
This applies only if the CH4 (methane) is graphed at a grossly distorted scale that equates methane parts per billion with CO2 parts per million. This would imply that CH4 is 1000 times more greenhouse contributive than CO2 when even the IPCC indicate it is only 22 times CO2 equivalent.
That explanation only holds water to those who are capable of accepting a 45 fold exaggeration.
3 The amplification theorists have not explained why the temperature is almost invariably well into a decline phase when the CO2 is supposedly doing its amplification.
Glassman has asked the very relevant question of why the CO2 amplification did not continue, and this was met with the rather casuist response to the effect that ‘the underlying warming would not have gone that far but for the CO2 amplification’, but no evidence appears to have been provided to prove that this underlying warming would have been limited.
The more important question as to ‘how come the temperature was already dropping when the claimed amplification was only just hitting its straps’, is a little harder to fudge a credible answer.
And this last point is of critical importance to the debate on the need for precautionary action in future.
If we have very solid historical evidence that temperatures have had no trouble at all in trending down in the face of rising CO2 levels then why should we now be expected to assume that this will no longer be the case?
Note on the graph above that from 130,000years bp to 110,000 bp we have a fairly consistent decline in temperature of 9C from +3C to -6C while the CO2 levels have plateaued (just below their peak) for most of those 20 millenia. That is about 16,000 years during which CO2 did not deliver the climatic service the Climate Cadres claim it does.
Furthermore, over the next 10 millenia there is a full 4C warming that takes place at the same time as CO2 undergoes a consistent decline from 275ppm to 235ppm (a 14.5% drop). This was followed by another 10 millenia each of 4C cooling and 4C warming that has no correlation whatsoever with CO2 levels that continued a downward trend to 210ppm (another 9.1% drop).
We then have another 20 millenia of a -6C cooling trend with 2C of rapid variations within the trend during which CO2 actually rises, plateaus and then drops to below 200ppm.
There is a standard CO2 lagging relationship for the next 40 millenia prior to the past 20,000 years of temperature rise and plateau with a similar lagging CO2.
The conclusion?
At best, CO2 levels have been defined by temperature change with CO2 following temperature trends but, in 70 of the past 130 millenia, temperature has changed without any identifiable link, association or input from CO2 levels.
well done Ian. You have successfully dismantled the belief that CO2 is the only climate variable affecting warming and that CO2 and temperature are linearly correlated variables.
Planet Ian can now sleep easy, safe in the knowledge that cars, lights, fridges and air conditioners will work to-morrow, making the world a safe and happy place for ever. How cute.
Luke, I just don’t believe you. 🙂
Ian
I can only agree with Anthony, you have argued a point that is not held by anyone.
I tire of the continued nonesense associating belief in something as being scientific – Ian Mott has simply shown the the statement “CO2 causes global warming” as false, as others have too.
The reaction by Anthony is but another instance of cognitive dissonance.
I suggest interested readers start looking at the data coming from the Japanese Hinode satellite studying the moon – all the previous assumption about the sun (the standard model is a simple hydrogen fusion generator radiating heat) appear to be wrong.
If this is so, then one of the most fundamental inputs to GCM’s has been invalaidated. The observations do, however, verify the theories of the electric plasma universe and cosmos.
As a consequence all the climate predictions on the sun (assuming the standard model) are also totally useless.
So that makes it the sun, cloudiness and now CO2.
Ian has argued for the geological observation that C O2 lags temperature by some 800 years.
Unless I have misunderstood Ian’s post.
It is far more likely that the non-scientists here have misunderstood it.
Ian – I really am amazed.
You have well demonstrated physics that CO2 has greenhouse properties – as does CO, CH4, NOx, H20
We have a warming world in the last 30 years with no solar driver to blame.
We have on ground evidence and satellite evidence of the greenhouse flux and its effect.
I’m amazed that you attributing every little wiggle in the paelo records to something – Arnost will have you up for ignoring volcanoes.
Indeed the isotope guys may even rewrite what actually happening.
Why does the planet cool again – gee it’s pretty basic – reduced solar input. he same reason it started to warm in the first place. The solar and CO2 fluxes are working together overlaid – why would you think otherwise.
Ian you’re missing one graph – what the solar forcing is over the CO2 and temperature proxy graphs.
A situation of glacial and interglacials in relative equilibrium is nothing like the current situation of injecting a massive quantity of CO2 into a steady state.
And you’re conveniently ignoring past history where CO2 and CH4 have led temperature. Why?
Glassman’s stuff is twaddle – simply a political essay – not science.
You’ve not even close to the mark and are simply ignoring a wider body of evidence.
If you don’t get it by now you never will.
Anthony – AGW theory has NEVER said that CO2 is the sole variable driving climate. If you think that you’re not even on the page and you need to realise you’re very poorly briefed. And the temperature on the planet depends on an integration of various forcings – solar, greenhouse, aerosols, volcanic dust. That’s what has always been said.
Luke
I think you misread Anthony’s post, (or I did), I believe he was agreeing with you.
Thanks for holding my hand Luke, I think you misread my post.
Louis – you seem to have strange understanding of Ian’s post and science. Ian has argued that because CO2 and temperature are not winning gold medals for synchronised swimming, CO2 hasn’t caused past warming (and presumably won’t cause future warming). Anyone daring enough to search the internet for 5 mins will see this is a pretty mindless conclusion.
As for proclamations denouncing the end of GCM as we know it because of some new data fitting an old theory…hmmm…probably best to wait for the new model to be road tested, don’t you think?
The only cognitive dissonance being experienced over here is from my continued dismay that people like yourself cling to the CO2 is life agenda for no apparent good reason. Not only is there solid evidence to believe the continued release of CO2 on current projections will cause more harm then good, reducing that CO2 will cause more good than harm.
Louis – I’m guessing you like certainty. How do you feel about change? Do you often find yourself looking to pin down the cause of an event to a single moment in time – a defining causal agent?
Do you not want to switch to cleaner fuels? More efficient energy use? More secure energy supplies? Do you beleive that cleaner, more efficient energy is a bad thing?
Heaven forbid, it could be good for the economy if economic growth and energy consumption did not have to grow side by side or do you disagree?
Would you rather we continue to ignore the lifecycle costs of mineral extraction? Inefficiencies of centralised energy production? flow on health costs from declining air quality?
Enlighten me Louis. Convince me that continuing to extract and use energy as we do is a good thing for environmental, social and economic reasons.
And how would you know schiller?
I thought this passage in Glassman’s article was interesting,
” In the GCMs, no part of the CO2 concentration is a “feedback”, a consequence of other variables. The GCMs appear to have no provision for the respiration of CO2 by the oceans. They neither account for the uptake of CO2 in the cold waters, nor the exhaust of CO2 from the warmed and CO2–saturated waters, nor the circulation by which the oceans scrub CO2 from the air.”
Does anyone have any contradiction/confirmation of this? If it’s true, that seems a glaring omission in the very computer programs we are relying on to provide evidence for “de-carbonising” our economies.
Sorry Anthony if I mistook the tongue in cheek.
Paul
“Does anyone have any contradiction/confirmation of this?”
It’s always intersting when what is supposed to be a serious piece of research provides no sources to back up it’s claim. My betting is that Mr Glassman is just another nutter.
Luke
I’m not saying that volcanos are ignored – I’m saying that in GCMs the volcano forcings are used extremely selectively.
The thrust of my post which started the digression into volcanos was that the models are too simplistic and they don’t account for the interrelationships between the forcings.
The quote that Paul highlighted in his 3:48 post:
In the GCMs, no part of the CO2 concentration is a “feedback”, a consequence of other variables.
is just another example.
cheers
Arnost
Wrong SJT.
If he was a nutter he would be on your side.
Just like your friend in BS, Stephen Schneider.
the quote is from his Bio in Wikipedia.
(I suppose Wikipedia is a bagman for the Oil barons as well!!)
Q) On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both. (Quoted in Discover, pp. 45–48, Oct. 1989, see also American Physical Society, APS News August/September 1996. [3]). End Q)
In other words, win no matter what the cost, to honesty or indeed the scientific content.
I can’t find a thing on him on google, and nothing on wikipedia.
“the volcano forcings are used extremely selectively” – WHY? wha’s wrong with using an atmospheric measure of aerosol activity? What’s your suggestion?
So what are the interrelationships between the forcings then?
And why does CO2 need to be a feedback in a 100 year GCM run with fixed scenarios? and how?
” In other words, win no matter what the cost, to honesty or indeed the scientific content.” – so nveket240 – on that basis put 90% of your denialist/contrarian dimwits in a very big scum bucket then and add vinegar to taste
“I can’t find a thing on him on google, and nothing on wikipedia.”
He probably doesn’t exist, then.
Luke, you’re sounding a bit rabid, calm down or you’ll make a significant contribution to global warming.
Do you have any information about other CO2 measuring stations? Or is there just the one?
Luke
The flat line in the second graph… http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/strataer/ …selective.
Why does CO2 need to be a feedback – It’s actually a negative feedback – More CO2 more plants / phytoplankton less temperature.
cheers
Arnost
Paul: downunder we often refer to Cape Grim; see example on this link
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/cmarlibrary/whatsnew/bp/aa0647.html
In CSIRO’s GASLAB, and at the Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station, packed column gas chromatography (GC) has been used for many years as a technique for making measurements of atmospheric trace gases. For measurements of methane, the detector of choice has been the flame ionisation detector (FID). For GC measurements of carbon dioxide, the FID has also been used as the detector, but a high temperature (400C) catalytic conversion is required of the column-separated carbon dioxide to methane. Carbon monoxide and hydrogen have been measured using the Trace Analytical heated mercuric oxide detector, while nitrous oxide has been measured using the electron capture detector (ECD). While these detectors have proven to be reliable in these applications over many years, some limitations are becoming apparent. In this presentation, the experiences so far in trials of the Valco pulsed discharge helium ionisation detector (PDHID), as a potential replacement for the FID, ECD, and mercuric oxide detector, in measurements of methane, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and nitrous oxide by packed column GC will be described. Briefly, the PDHID has the advantage of being highly sensitive, and effectively behaves as a universal detector. But the universal response has introduced difficulties which are not so severe with the other detectors. In particular, the large (and tailing) chromatographic peaks for nitrogen and oxygen present challenges for improved column separation for those species eluting soon after the oxygen and nitrogen. The strong response of the PDHID to oxygen and nitrogen make the technique particularly sensitive to leaks anywhere in the GC system. The response of the PDHID to the noble gases present in the atmosphere requires very good column resolution to avoid interferences with the targeted species. Good temperature control of the detector and key plumbing components is required for best results. Results will be presented for measurements of hydrogen, which show great promise. Hydrogen elutes prior to oxygen and nitrogen on the selected packed columns, and so is not subject to the difficulties of the tailing oxygen and nitrogen peaks. Precisions (repeatabilities) of 0.1% have been achieved with hydrogen mixing ratios of approximately 500 parts per billion in dry air. Linear response over a 20-fold range in hydrogen mixing ratios has been found. (Author abstract).
Abstract only ; VS:ATP DIVP 2006 Ca
Thanks gavin.
Here is a comparison of Cape Grimm and Mauna Loa CO2 observations. They are pretty much identical.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/mlo145e_thrudc04.pdf
http://www.dar.csiro.au/capegrim/image/cg_CO2.png
A CO2 report is located here
http://www.csiro.au/news/ps2im.html
Dr Fraser says the 30-year record of air collected at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s observation station in Cape Grim, showed growth rates of just over one part per million in the early 1980s, but in recent years carbon dioxide has increased at almost twice this rate. “The trend over recent years suggests the growth rate is accelerating, signifying that fossil fuels are having an impact on greenhouse gas concentrations in a way we haven’t seen in the past.”
Luke is capable of dismissing shifts in global mean temperature of 4-6C as mere “wriggles” on the graph. Meanwhile, he and his kind whip the world into a lather over a claimed 0.6C warming that has a large element of fabrication in it.
Note well Luke, some of those wriggles involved 15 to 20 millenia when the temperature went the direct opposite way to CO2.
And when the beady eye of scrutiny starts to focus on the ice core data, surprise, surprise, they shift their point of attack to 55 million years ago where the data has more in common with nostradamus and can be spun in any direction they want.
Paul, Mauna Loa is on top of a classic shield volcano with very gradual incline. It is not some conical point that intercepts upper atmosphere stata as one is encouraged to conclude. Instead, the surface layers move up the gentle slope to the sampling point which is about 30km down wind (south west) from a vent that has been erupting almost continuously for close to 30 years.
The Cadres claim that measurements are only taken after 6 hours of still air, implying that this gives an uncontaminated air sample. But this ignores the fact that prior to the air being still it was probably moving slowly, moving the CO2 from the vent up the gentle slope to the mountain top. And surprise, surprise, the CO2 levels have been higher since the venting started.
Other samples indicate that the southern hemisphere has a few ppm less CO2 than the northern.
Another interesting attribute of CO2 is that the lowest 10cm of air has more than 1% CO2 which is 30 times more than that found at 1 metre height. This is produced by soil microbes and decaying matter. So if one gets a mixing of these layers, via a very gentle breeze for example, the lowest 10cm of CO2 can double the reading for the lowest 3 metres of atmosphere. Any stronger breeze will increase the height of the mixing layer and thereby dilute the CO2 reading to background levels.
But if all CO2 readings are taken after six hours of minimal air movement then the risk of mixing with the surface layer is actually higher, not lower as we are led to believe.
Oh gawd, hasn’t the lag issue been well enough mixed already? Doesn’t anyone pay attention? No wonder Phil retired to build new walls to talk to and plastered in his ears in the process.
Sorry Paul Williams I was trying a Mottsian approach. Paul – Google Jen’s archives for CO2 in Antarctica – there’s some small but insignificant differences.
Arnost – well the plants need to munch a bit more the CO2 is going up up up and now
Arnost and Paul Williams in terms of modelling feedbacks what you’re on about check
http://www.mpimet.mpg.de/fileadmin/static/deklim/en/uber/over.html
Then scholar.google.com the authors for results in the literature.
In terms of CO2 feedbacks in the glacial interglacial story there’s been a fair bit of scholarly work done on this topic – using more than envelopes, hand waving, gimp abuse, and line graphs.
Examples follow:
Jen says most people don’t look at links (except Paul Biggs probably).
http://www.awi.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Research/Research_Divisions/Climate_Sciences/Paleoclimate_Dynamics/Modelling/Research_periods/TransientSimulation1.pdf
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0962-8436(19930828)341%3A1297%3C253%3AWVCAIO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z#abstract
OK Ian – you’ve raised the issue – now extractus digitus and inform us of the differences between the various measuring stations worlwide for CO2. Is there much in it? Or just flying more kites in an opportunity to obfuscate.
Paul
if you can find him, please do. nevket240 assured me there was a bio on wikipedia, I can’t find it there.
Paul: I’m no expert in GC gas chromatography but I have worked with a few who were. Much of our heavy industry depended on them through the 60’s and beyond. It seems from the above we still do.
The concept of baseline measurements was born in this period of effluent analysis. Excess 02 replaced CO2 as the target in all flue gas as it presented a finer combustion control. That’s when I lost interest in GC for mainstream upgrades. Inline CO2 measurement then was touchy feely stuff despite the old science in favor of it.
Cape Grim and the other baseline stations represented a milestone in atmospheric science. I have never doubted their input to current knowledge but I suspected Cape Grim had the edge because CSIRO had better gear and less “distractions” until quite recently. I recall our scientists had to stay at the site for extended commissioning and I am certain there was good interchange with the Antarctic divisions. I knew some well enough to debate routines, calibration and standards development.
Now according to this blog everyone can have a field day with data they know nothing about.
Luke
Had a good look through the CLIMCYC proposal – looks like a step in the right direction – but what they come up with remains to be seen.
In any case – it will end up too simplistic – too many interdependent variables, and by any measure not all captured.
In the future GCMs, even with today’s computers will be seen as trying find solutions to fluid dynamics / Navier-Stokes equations with an abacus.
cheers
Arnost
Ian
perhaps you could identify the volcanoe in Tasmania that is screwing up the CO2 readings.
http://www.dar.csiro.au/capegrim/image/cg_CO2.png
Arnost
“In the future GCMs, even with today’s computers will be seen as trying find solutions to fluid dynamics / Navier-Stokes equations with an abacus.”
what do you know about the computers and why they are incapable of giving a reliable guide to what will happen?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Schneider
I thought this was interesting, although the learned gathering have probably seen it previously. If ever you needed confirmation of the “hockey stick” this is it!!
http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/Sola2-PRL_published.pdf
Arnost – so you want it both ways – you want complexity built in but they can’t do it. Bit of a problem satisfying you then isn’t it.
What have they come up with you ask – scholar.google.com the authors and find out.
Notice how Luke & SJT run the facts through the ideological filter before any attempt at processing same. For the record, Luke, my post on the ice core data was not an argument for any position, it was a straight forward description of what the graph tells us took place.
And it is a simple fact that for large parts of the past 130 millenia CO2 didn’t even follow temperature changes. That is, it was not even a positive feedback let alone act as a forcing agent.
And this took place in a context of major shifts in temperature of a scale that completely dwarfs current temperature variation, even the fudged temperatures.
And this must raise greater doubts about the significance of current CO2 changes which may be producing comparatively minor warming events. It certainly indicates that CO2 is not god and it certainly indicates that the IPCC was in error to suggest a level of certainty of 90%. I would guess that the actual level of certainty is more like 50/50 if not lower.
Ian
how many times do you have to be told. CO2 is not god. Forget it, drop it, it was never said, never believed. There are 12 different forcings listed by the IPCC. At the present, CO2 is the driver, no more, no less. In ten thousand years time, the story could be completely different.
He’s tiring AND abuse is lessening.
He’s starting to reflect on the wider picture.
Anyway – let’s play “policy officer on watch”. So Ian and anyone else – you have to write a 2-3 line brief for the PM on global warming – carbon issues. Your fearless advice knowing all you know and harbouring doubts etc is what ??
“policy officer on watch”, hmm, do we have those?
I’d say, “Even if CO2 is causing global warming, and that’s not certain, nothing Australia can do unilaterally will affect the future course of global warming. Don’t wreck the economy, look for pain free methods of reducing emissions involving other countries, such as technology transfers.”
Do I get the job?
Paul – The PM mindful of cyclone Larry and the recent drought – wants to know if climate change represents any hazard to the Australian people. Your supplementary advice is?
Paul in his new found role ( too sensible I suspect Paul to actually get the job!) replies maybe climate change represents a hazard, maybe not…but I could lie to you and get you to do things like use low energy light bulbs, or pay 25-50% more for your power , putting up the price of everything you buy. This will have no noticeable effect but it will make you feel like we are doing something to fix a problem that we may or may not be responsible for. While we are it, lets put in place a carbon tax on our exports so that people buy their coal from somewhere else. It doesn t matter that there coal is likely to not be of such a high export quality and will pollute more. Nobody will be able to say its our fault so we can all rest in peace.
Feel better everybody?
Food for thought:
Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time
from
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
Average global temperatures in the Early Carboniferous Period were hot- approximately 20° C (68° F). However, cooling during the Middle Carboniferous reduced average global temperatures to about 12° C (54° F). As shown on the chart below, this is comparable to the average global temperature on Earth today!
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif
Similarly, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Early Carboniferous Period were approximately 1500 ppm (parts per million), but by the Middle Carboniferous had declined to about 350 ppm — comparable to average CO2 concentrations today!
Earth’s atmosphere today contains about 380 ppm CO2 (0.038%). Compared to former geologic times, our present atmosphere, like the Late Carboniferous atmosphere, is CO2- impoverished! In the last 600 million years of Earth’s history only the Carboniferous Period and our present age, the Quaternary Period, have witnessed CO2 levels less than 400 ppm.
source for temperatures:
http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm
source for CO2 (fig 13)
http://earth.geology.yale.edu/~ajs/2001/Feb/qn020100182.pdf
Also a good read is a summary of temps over the last 3 million years – starting with a graph of the last 100 years and then increasing the scale by an order of magnitude.
http://muller.lbl.gov/pages/IceAgeBook/history_of_climate.html
This last shows that tempreaures have by no means been as steady as some on this forum constantly state.
cheers
Arnost
Arnost – just add to your list – at that time many millions of years ago the continents and oceans were in what configuation (Pangea type stuff) and what location respect to the equator and poles; solar & orbital forcings were ?; animal and plant fauna were ?; and no 6 billion humans.
Just remember the Earth has survived all these changes – well the rocks have – most of the animal and plant fauna has not!
There are good reasons to imply climate induced extinctions in the fossil record – see http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001666.html
So think it through holistically not just from one issue.
OK – animal fauna and plants
Arnost
If you look at those graphs, the temperature is very stable.
“The dip near 6000 BC is not understood. It actually appears to be coincident with a short term increase in temperature that took place in Antarctica! So we can’t easily interpret everything in these plots, at least not without studying other records. Fluctuations are evident all over the plot, and crying to be understood.
Agriculture began about 7,000 BCE, as marked on the plot. All of civilization was based on this invention. Agriculture allows large groups of people to live in the same location. It allows a small number of people to feed others, so that the others can become craftsmen, artists, historians, inventors, and scientists.
The sudden rise at the left side of the plot, at about 9,000 BCE (i.e. 11,000 years ago), was the end of the last ice age. The abruptness of the termination is startling. Agriculture, and all of our civilization, developed since this termination. The enormous glacier, several kilometers thick, covering much of North America and Eurasia, rapidly melted. Only small parts of this glacier survived, in Greenland and Antarctica, where they exist to this day. The melting caused a series of worldwide floods unlike anything previously experienced by Homo sapiens. (There had been a previous flood at about 120 kyr, but that was before Homo sapiens had moved to Europe or North America.) The flood dumped enough water into the oceans to cause the average sea level to rise 110 meters, enough to inundate the coastal areas, and to cover the Bering Isthmus, and turn it into the Bering Strait. The water from melting ice probably flooded down over land in pulses, as ice-dammed lakes formed and then catastrophically released their water. These floods left many records, including remnant puddles now known as the Great Lakes, and possibly gave rise to legends that persisted for many years. As the glacier retreated, it left a piles of debris at its extremum. One such pile is now known as New York’s Long Island.”
Most of the time it varies in a range of about 1C.
Now we are taking off in the upward direction, and it won’t stop at a 1C increase, but keep on. Possibly up to 4.6C, IIRC.
Civilisation was able to flourish in what has been a very stable range of temperatures.
Luke,
Try ‘biota’ – this covers plants and animals, but also includes the zooplankton, phytoplankton, bacteria, cyanobacteria, viruses, rickettsia, and other little wrigglies. They have a big influence on the oceans and atmosphere – probably more than the plants and animals we can see. Remember Mumbai in the mango season, and that big brown cloud over the Indian Ocean? Ah! Sweeter than all the perfumes of Pinxi. Out damn microbes – they are the source of our climate troubles. How about a Mumbai Protocol? Bumper sticker – BAN THE BACTERIA. Cyanobacteria trading on the stockmarket? They are producing too much of that well known atmospheric pollutant nitrogen. Or maybe not enough. Is the absolute amount of CO2 increasing, or just its proportion of the atmosphere? No polemics and abuse – just the facts please.
And with that the 4th veil was loosened… but just then a heckler yelled “what’s that a-litist crap? biota? you mean life don’t ya guv?” and then it was hitched up again.
The common man, if possessed of little else, must be brimming with COMMONsense and he’d use a parachute for sure. He’d see it so: fauna is what they make hamburger patties outta or what you do to a dreamy bird, and flora is waht you spread on your burger bun, or your pappadam as you may have it, biota is something the little wife scrubs outta the shower, carbon’s what ya clean outta the barbie once a bloo moon and global warming is something the bloody pollies should leave offshore next time they buy in some cheap fuel for the commodore.
JIC you think he’s chucked ya a dorothy dixer lukey, be sure to tell us where that missing carbon is hiding. Not behind a flimsy veil or inside microscopic guts or fantasy island volcanoes on ocean floor.
Sounds like mango season in Mumbai, Pinxi.
Davey
Luke has already provided the answers with his links.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/mlo144e_thrudc03.pdf
If you look at this graph, and ignore the ‘chemical raw data’, because it is meaningless, you can see how the ice core record dovetails quite nicely into the measurements at Mauna Loa, to give a reading of CO2 concentration back to the early 1800’s.
Woops, forgot second graph.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/10/more_nonsense_about_co2.php
SJT – I think an undergrad stats student might look at the graph in Deltoid’s post and suspect that the post 1958 CO2 data is from (a) a different planet or (b) a different system of measurement. hmmm – which data set to believe. So we go from something that jumps around all over the place pre-1958 to suddenly a straight line or slightly curvilinear increase.
Gee it’s a hard decision isn’t it 🙂
Thanks for the graphs SJT. I had seen the Mauna Loa one before. My question (which was lost in the avalanche of mangoes, pappadums, and veil dancers) was this. As a non-chemist, it seems to me that a gas concentration can rise for a range of reasons. One is that the molecule of interest has increased. Another is that it has stayed constant, and other molecules have decreased. There are other possibilities, for example a fall in the molecule of interest, but an even greater fall in the other molecules. Is there any evidence of changes in the volume of atmosphere, or of nitrogen, oxygen etc.? A possible mechanism would be an increase in cyanobacteria (fix nitrogen) or land plants, or phytoplankton (produce oxygen). I hope some knowledgeable reader can help me out here. Even the hoi-polloi may state their case, Pinxi, as long as they show due respect.
I mean, of course, that plants, and oxygen, may have hypothetically decreased.
Dave: IMHO What’s at issue here is the vol of CO2 loose in the atmosphere. Apart from water vapor the rest are red herrings.
Simple hey.
As you well know I’m most interested in the performance or otherwise of our forests re C, CO and CO2 in the carbon cycle also up in the sky. Smoke watching was part of my job in industry too.
Now as our PM grabs 200 M of our dough for the forests for Asia. I’m not about to shout hooray cause getting the next batch of C type emissions from fossils back into wood is hardly secured. I’m sure Jennifer will thump her drum soon enough though.
Nobody here is talking about keeping all our black stuff where it’s mostly harmless.
Digging it up is the easy bit, making it burn properly so there is no CO was the first problem (notice how everybody takes even that for granted). Since I’m well practiced in efficient burning technology for wood, coal, oil and gas lets say it could be a long time before either our forests or theirs can catch up on CO2
Gavin,
Since we cannot measure the volume of CO2 in the atmosphere directly, I have assumed that it is estimated by the product of the observed concentration and the approximate volume of the atmosphere. If the volume of atmosphere were actually a moving target, due, say, to major changes in solubility in the oceans, or release therefrom, then won’t the estimation of tonnes of CO2 be a bit dodgy?
Davey
CO2 is a very stable gas, compared to others in the atmosphere. IIRC, you can expect the average molecule of to last over a hundred years up there.
Methane degrades more quickly, water vapour content will drop as soon as the temperature falls.
Dave: There is a direct relationship with what we burn and the extra CO2 on the loose.