THE amount of two key greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere rose sharply in 2007, and carbon dioxide levels this year are literally off the chart, the US government reported today.
In its annual index of greenhouse gas emissions, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found atmospheric carbon dioxide rose by 0.6 per cent, or 19 billion tonnes last year.
The amount of methane increased by 0.5 per cent, or 27 million tonnes, after nearly a decade of little or no change, according preliminary figures to scientists at the government’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Colorado.
News.com.au:Carbon dioxide levels ‘off the chart’
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Mean while in small town America, Rocky and Bullwinkle were still searching for that essential climatic fact.
The headline is a bit silly to say the least:
year ppm/yr
1959 0.94
1960 0.50
1961 0.98
1962 0.62
1963 0.73
1964 0.25
1965 1.02
1966 1.25
1967 0.70
1968 1.06
1969 1.33
1970 0.98
1971 0.88
1972 1.72
1973 1.17
1974 0.82
1975 1.10
1976 0.90
1977 2.08
1978 1.33
1979 1.61
1980 1.84
1981 1.41
1982 0.71
1983 2.18
1984 1.39
1985 1.23
1986 1.51
1987 2.30
1988 2.14
1989 1.24
1990 1.32
1991 1.00
1992 0.49
1993 1.26
1994 1.96
1995 1.98
1996 1.19
1997 1.93
1998 3.00
1999 0.88
2000 1.73
2001 1.63
2002 2.55
2003 2.31
2004 1.55
2005 2.54
2006 1.72
2007 2.14
Paul,
I have been looking at the NOAA graph and it takes a certain mind set to characterise the graph as the gloomy MT Tan does – talk about hype!
Paul: You didn’t identify the data you had posted, but I graphed it anyway.
http://i25.tinypic.com/1zg7vir.jpg
Doesn’t appear to be earth shattering growth lately.
Regards
Sorry Bob – it’s here linked from the article:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
Is there a link to the methane data/chart?
Jennifer: Here’s a link to a chart that includes methane.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi_2008.fig2.png
The statement by Pieter Tans of NOAA that ‘The rise [in CO2 concentrations] continued in 2008 ‘with world emissions of this gas heading off the chart at over 386 ppm’ is an appalling misuse of statistics. According to the seasonally corrected trend data in the right-hand column, CO2 concentrations DECREASED from 384.68 ppm in December 2007 to 384.38 ppm in March 2008.
Yes, the UNADJUSTED level of concentrations increased in the first quarter of calendar 2008, as it usually does. By the same token, Australia’s unadjusted level of retail sales collapsed in January 2008 after being ‘off the chart’ in December 2007. There weren’t any headlines about that!
As for ‘heading off the chart at over 386 ppm’, the concentrations haven’t actually got there in 2008 yet, even on the unadjusted figures that Tans shouldn’t have used anyway. But the unadjusted figures WERE over 386 ppm in April and May 2007.
For the 8 years from March 2000 and March 2008, the average annual increase in CO2 concentrations was 1.95 ppm. This is right in line with the IPCC’s projections published in 2001. Tans’s statement that ‘This whole decade the rate of increase has accelerated’ is simply wrong.
It’s about time NOAA gave its scientists some training in the interpretation of statistics.
Thank you Ian Castles.
As I posted above it takes a certain mindset to arrive at Mr Tan’s conclusions.
It seems that even the most dubious or ill-founded alarmist claims are always deemed newsworthy and reported without qualification. However,even the soundest findings that cast any doubt on AGW dogma tend to be either ignored or reported as “controversial”.
Clearly a tipping point has been reached!
Lawrie: Paul,
I have been looking at the NOAA graph and it takes a certain mind set to characterise the graph as the gloomy MT Tan does – talk about hype!
It’s quite simple Lawrie: the data show quite clearly that the annual rate of CO2 increase is greater now than it was two or three decades ago.
Ian Castles: “The statement by Pieter Tans of NOAA that ‘The rise [in CO2 concentrations] continued in 2008 ‘with world emissions of this gas heading off the chart at over 386 ppm’ is an appalling misuse of statistics.”
Ian: I am having trouble finding just where Tans uttered these words. Could you please point me to the place, with a link?
LOuis:Clearly a tipping point has been reached!
More fatuous comment from Louis.
“where Tans uttered these words”
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKN2345712720080423
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424141929.htm
Melinda Marquis
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/uoca-brm042308.php
http://www.physorg.com/news128265983.html
peterd, This is to answer your inquiry about the source of Tans’ comments.
After the sub-heading ‘Off the chart’, the next paragraph of Reuter’s UK report by Deborah Zabarenko, to which gavin provides a link in the above post, ends with the words ‘Tans said in a telephone interview.’ None of the immediately preceding 43 words are in quotes, but Tans presumably ‘uttered’ them.
The next paragraph consists of 53 words within quotation marks, with ‘he [i.e. Tans] said’ inserted in the middle. And the immediately succeeding paragraph, in which there are no quotation marks, says that ‘The rise [in CO2 concentrations] continued in 2008’, and provides a link to an online chart which is wrongly stated to show ‘ world emissions of this gas heading off the chart at over 386 ppm’.
The next paragraph reports Tans’ comments in quotation marks (28 words), again with ‘Tans said’ in the middle. Then there’s a paragraph of 36 words, with no quotation marks, that reports further comments that were presumably made by Tans . And yet another paragraph consisting of a 16-word sentence in quotation marks, followed by the words “Tans said”.
There’s no point in trying to distinguish between words explicitly attributed to Pieter Tans within quotation marks and the journalist’s paraphrases. That’s the way press releases and media reports are written.
If Tans didn’t say “off the chart”, who did? Today’s Sydney Morning Herald report was headed “Carbon output goes off the chart”; the Reuters UK report said that ‘the US government reported on Wednesday’ that “carbon dioxide levels this year [i.e. 2008] are LITERALLY off the chart” (EMPHASIS added); and the ‘news.com.au’ story, linked in the main post above, is headed “Carbon dioxide levels ‘off the chart’” {quotes around ‘off the chart’ in original].
If the claim that the this year’s CO2 levels are ‘literally off the chart’ came from the US government rather than NOAA’s spokesperson, it’s even worse. Is this merely incompetence? It would be bad enough if NOAA merely omitted to mention that seasonally corrected CO2 concentrations had gone down in the first quarter of calendar 2008, but for the Office or its spokeperson to assert that ‘The rise [in these concentrations] continued’ this year is false reporting.
There are now 50 years of records from Mauna Lau and during this period there has only been one March quarter (the three months ended March 1972) in which the seasonally adjusted decline in CO2 concentrations was (slightly) greater than in the three months to March 2008. NOAA’s failure to acknowledge this is outrageous.
Peterd – Ian Castles wrote that sentence, and you have hought he qouted Tans.
How about you reading the report Ian Castle’s commented on before doing a “Lukism”.
Peterd
Followed by an even more fatuous retort!
(Whoops – Ian Castles was in the wings and himself was unaware! Argghhhh!)
Ian Castles: thanks for the courteous reply, and I apologise for the slow response (well, slow on the internet blog time-scale, I mean). My comments follow.
First, it was not clear to me from your original post that you were not actually quoting what Tans is known to have said, but were merely inferring the content of his comments from the press release. As I understand, NOAA personnel have in recent times, under the Bush administration, been forced to have their interviews “cleared” with their own administrators, so I suppose that what has been reported must be a reasonable summary of their comments.
Second, the issue of global versus local (Mauna Loa) data is becoming confused.
You wrote that “…CO2 concentrations DECREASED from 384.68 ppm in December 2007 to 384.38 ppm”, but it is clear that the news article was referring to GLOBAL CO2 concentrations, whereas the data you have quoted come from Mauna Loa. As stated at the ESRL website, there may be differences between Mauna Loa data and the globally averaged values. Some differences are quite obvious, as in the amplitude of the seasonal swings (difference between late summer/early fall minimum and the spring peak), which is about 8 ppmv in Mauna Loa and about 6 ppmv in the global data. This is because the global data include the southern hemisphere (of course!), and that has a much smaller seasonal swing.
When we look at the GLOBAL data (bottom part of the ESRL page linked by Gavin above), what do we see? Certainly, the “recent global mean monthly CO2” is “literally” off the chart at 386 ppmv. Of course, “off the chart” depends entirely on where you choose to draw the end of the chart, so it’s meaningless anyway, and not a term I would have chosen myself, but this is the media, and they do want our attention. That “off-the-chart” value is the monthly mean (unadjusted) data. However, it appears to me that the adjusted value will be there (at 386 ppmv) very soon, and almost certainly by the end of this year.
Third, you also take Tans to task for his comments on the rate of increase of CO2. What did he say? Here is the text: “The average (annual rise) over the last five or six years has been 2 ppm and that is actually steeper than it has been in previous decades,” he said. “This whole decade the rate of increase has accelerated…”. It is clear that Tans‘s first statement is correct. The AMGR (annual mean growth rate) has increased in the last decade or so, compared to what it was when Keeling began his measurements at Mauna Loa. Then, it was less than 1 ppmv/yr, on average. Now, it is approx. 2 ppmv/yr, and may even be higher. What does Tans mean in his second sentence? Arguably, you are misinterpreting his words. He could be taken to mean that through this whole decade (the 2000s) the rate of increase is higher than what is was before the 2000s. In other words, he is just expressing the first sentence, in a different way. OR, he could be suggesting the rate has accelerated continuously through the 2000s themselves. I am not myself convinced of that. There is too much spread in the individual data, and I would not be one to draw a conclusion as to “accelerating” AMGR from a comparison of the means of data from the two halves of the period (which is only 8 years long anyway).
Erratum: the link to ESRL was provided by Paul Biggs, not by Gavin.
More importantly, why didn’t NOAA make mention of the fact that the highest annual increment on CO2 was the 1998 El Nino with 3ppm. But this is only part of the story, the annual peaks and troughs reveal much more.
The trough of 1997 was only 360.19ppm and this marked the end of the northern hemisphere growing (CO2 absorbing) season. The following peak was 366.79ppm (6.60ppm change) which was a normal northern winter event when absorption by vegetation is minimal and both natural and human emissions accumulate.
But the descent into the 1998 trough was less than half the normal scale, down only 2.89ppm to 366.90ppm which is the direct consequence of reduced vegetative growth in the drought. This was not caused by any increase in human emissions because it all took place within a six month period.
Indeed, the ascent to the following peak was only slightly less than normal, with an increase of 5.39ppm to 369.29ppm. The critical numbers to note from this data is the trough to trough change from 1997 to 1998 which showed a massive 3.71ppm reduction in the capacity of vegetation and oceans to absorb CO2.
This 3.71ppm amounts to a massive 19.5Gt of CO2 that has become a permanent addition to the atmospheric gas composition. It is more than double the total volume of human emissions in the whole year. And it has not been corrected by growth in subsequent years. In effect, nature didn’t show up for work that year and we have the extra CO2 to show for it.
Ian: I think both your reading and your interpretation of the CO2 data are off the mark. I’ve downloaded the data (daily, monthly, annual average, and seasonally adjusted) from the NOAA site and I’m having trouble reconciling your data with theirs.
First, to reiterate my point to Ian Castles, the NOAA news release was about GLOBAL data, not Mauna Loa data. Your post also appears to relate to Mauna Loa (?) data. At least, if we are going to talk about northern hemisphere sinks, it is best to use northern hemisphere CO2 data.
But what do the Mauna Loa data indicate? You claim the 1997 trough was 360.19, while the following peak was 366.79. OK, my inspection of the Mauna Loa monthly (unsmoothed) averages shows 360.06 in September, only slightly different from your value. However, the following fall-winter peak is shown as 369.33 ppm. This is an increase of >9 ppm, and is somewhat greater than the increase (of about 7ppm) shown in the corresponding periods in the preceding three years of data. The 1998 Mauna Loa trough was 363.83, or a decrease of 5.5 ppm from the preceding peak, and is only slightly less than that seen in the previous two years (where it was 5.6 and 6.4 ppm). Where do you draw your conclusion that “…the descent into the 1998 trough was less than half the normal scale, down only 2.89ppm to 366.90ppm”? There seems to me no way that your numbers can be reconciled with either the Mauna Loa or the global records. You also suggest, from the numbers you gave that the “.. trough to trough change from 1997 to 1998… showed a massive 3.71ppm reduction in the capacity of vegetation and oceans to absorb CO2.” It is questionable whether the oceans’ ability to absorb CO2 was affected significantly and adversely (and measurably) during this period. A paper by Battle et al. [1] indicates that the oceans’ uptake was not affected negatively during the period 1997-1998. According to Greenblatt & Sarmiento [2], the ENSO corresponds to higher than usual oceanic uptake of CO2: “…there is ample evidence for increased ocean uptake [of CO2] in El Nino years…” (p.261). A study by Bousquet et al. [3] of global carbon fluxes shows that 1998 was characterised by an anomalously large positive global land flux of CO2. Presumably, this is the origin of the sharp rise in CO2 during the 1998 spring growth period. So, what is the evidence for your claim that terrestrial sink uptake was reduced in 1998?
But what’s the issue, anyway? That Nature causes swings in CO2, above and beyond the seasonal ups and downs? It has been suspected for quite a long time that “natural” swings on CO2 levels of the order of 10 ppm occur. (See Oeschger and Stauffer, “Review of the history of atmospheric CO2 recorded in ice cores”, The changing carbon cycle; a global analysis, Springer, 1986, pp.89-108.)
[1] M. Battle, M. L. Bender, P. P. Tans, J. W. C. White, J. T. Ellis, T. Conway, & R. J. Francey, Global Carbon Sinks and Their Variability Inferred from Atmospheric O2 and 13C, Science, 287, 2467 (2000)
[2] Jeffery B. Greenblatt and Jorge L. Sarmiento, Variability and Climate Feedback Mechanisms in Ocean Uptake of CO2, Chapter 13 in The Global Carbon Cycle (ed. C.B. Filed and M.R. Raupach, SCOPE, Island Press, 2004)
[3] Philippe Bousquet, Philippe Peylin, Philippe Ciais, Corinne Le Quere, Pierre Friedlingstein, Pieter P. Tans, Regional Changes in Carbon Dioxide Fluxes of Land and Oceans Since 1980, Science, 290, 1342 (2000)
“…the origin of the sharp rise in CO2 during the 1998 spring growth period” SHOULD be “the origin of the sharp rise in CO2 at the start of the 1998 spring growth”.
There are only two deniers to consider; the global temperature record and the CO2 concentration record.
The global temperature record shows cooling on average since 2002. The CO2 record shows an increase over the same time period.
The two curves correlate with a negative correlation co efficient indicating that increases in CO2 cause cooling or there is no correlation of CO2 with global temperature.
Global cooling ended in 1975 and global warming hysteria was based on the positive correlation of CO2 with the increasing global temperature over a similar time frame to the negative correlation today.
If this is all it takes to justify global warming lunacy this should be all it takes to stop it
I’m not sure about where you are but here in Huntsville, AL (home of UAH and Dr. John Christy), we’re having one amazingly pleasant August. Sure, the temperature might spike to 105 humid degrees next week, but that’s exactly what we would expect for this time of year. Instead we’ve had very cool, rainy days mixed in with relatively arid, pleasantly warm days.
The rest of the world should look at today’s SE USA weather with extreme envy.
And I’d love to know what our temps have to do with spiking CO2 levels.
Folks. We have a problem!! From 2005 until this year global production, and use, of crude oil leveled off so there isn’t more CO2 from oil. China is putting more CO2 from coal into the air, but other countries are moving to wind and solar, so I would guess CO2 originating from coal should be about level. If those two primary sources of CO2 are leveling, where can the increases be coming from. Did I read an increase of 19 million metric tons. There can’t be an increase without a source for that increase.