Using evidence from an Antarctic ice core, Zebee and Caldiera calculated that over a period of 610,000 years the long-term change in atmospheric CO2 concentration was just 22 parts per million volume (ppmv), although there were larger fluctuations associated with the transitions between glacial and interglacial conditions.
By comparison, two centuries of human industry have raised levels by about 100 ppmv.
BBC News website: Nature’s carbon balance confirmed
Nature Geoscience: Close mass balance of long-term carbon fluxes from ice-core CO2 and ocean chemistry records
Richard E. Zeebe & Ken Caldeira
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Gaia nods
This result is hardly surprising when the only parts of the ice-cores analysed are those not subject to “fracturing” from release of contained gases under burial pressure.
This study is flawed.
(Cues in Luke and the AGW clowns).
Richard E. Zeebe & Ken Caldeira (2007)
“CO2 emissions could violate EPA ocean-quality standards within decades”
http://www.ciw.edu/news/co2_emissions_could_violate_epa_ocean_quality_standards_within_decades
Any rises from now in carbon dioxide concentration are meaningless from a climate point of view. Almospheric radiation absorbance by the gas is on a logarithmically declining curve, and we are already on the very flat part of such a curve. From memory, the first 20ppm of carbon dioxide absorbs more than the next three hundred ppm.
In any event I doubt if anyone has actually proved that absorbed gases represent the atmospheric concentrations when the ice was formed. At first sight, this would seem very unlikely.
Says Louis right on cue – who has such an open mind that he hasn’t even read it. Clueless Louis. Clueless.
Strangely climate modellers may know about the CO2 logarithmic business – not sure who told them….
…. and the Observed effect? Basically undetectable within the background noise of natural variability.
In the absence of any significant temperature rise. Concentrate instead,on the rise of CO2….
However if little attention is gained. Set hair on fire and run panicked in ever decreasing circles. This is certain to raise alarm….
A further quip if I may indulge….
“Bored the young skeptical scientist finished his post, little knowing the danger until too late!
Abruptly he was grasped with eager hands from the shadows and bludgeoned sensless with a crudely fashioned hypothesis…..”
: )
“CO2 balance” ???
How’s about ‘Honest Politician’, ‘Jewish Pope’, ‘Dappled Unicorn’ as other terms referring to no corresponding reality?
Ken Caldiera, didn’t he recently say we desperately needed to eliminate all CO2 emission? Why hasn’t he responsibly ceased respiration?
From my perspective after a cursory look at this study, averaging over 610,000 years is more in the normal range that one would expect although by concentrating on volcanic eruptions only is it being just a tad selective? I feel the true self regulating dynamic can be better understood by studying the extent and duration of the peaks and troughs … i.e. the warming/cooling dynamic.
This study cannot conclude by saying that humans are now emitting CO2 so fast that the planet’s natural balancing mechanism cannot keep up, because this has not been shown in their selective evidence.
Doug Lavers: In any event I doubt if anyone has actually proved that absorbed gases represent the atmospheric concentrations when the ice was formed. At first sight, this would seem very unlikely.
Doug: see the chapter by Hans Oeschger and B. Stauffer, Review of the history of atmospheric CO2 recorded in ice cores”, The changing carbon cycle; a global analysis, Springer, 89-108, 1986.
From that chapter: “Scholander et al. (1961)…found that, in general, the gas composition [in gas bubbles in polar ice] deviated appreciably from that of air, especially concerning the CO2/air ratio. HOWEVER,
14-C and 18-O determinations showed that ice of the greatest age and coldest origin had relatively low variability and had CO2 concentrations close to that of the atmosphere”. (p.90; emphasis added).
By all means question, Doug. However, unless you can refer to refereed-journal papers that show the contrary, or that ice cores of great age contain unrepresentative concentrations of CO2, then the statement above stands.
Gary Gulrud: add “informed, well-read AGW denialist” to your list.
What I admire about you, Gary, is your ability to hold beliefs regardless of the evidence either way. Evidence just doesn’t matter, does it?
Consider, for example, that the term “The CO2 balance” occurs as the heading of Section 4 in Gilbert Plass’s “Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change”, in Tellus, VIII (1956), p.140. The same section contains the term “the CO2 equilibrium”. The idea has been around a long time. When you actually know something, Gary, get back to us.
Keiran: “This study cannot conclude by saying that humans are now emitting CO2 so fast that the planet’s natural balancing mechanism cannot keep up, because this has not been shown in their selective evidence.”
Perhaps not in this study (which I haven’t yet read, apart from the Abstract). However, it’s clear that other evidence points firmly to the conclusion that CO2 is now being added faster that it can be taken up by natural sinks. What does the famous Mauna Loa “curve” show? How do you explain the continuous increase in atmospheric CO2, given that the CO2 in the atmosphere was stable at around 270 ppm, plus or minus 10ppm, for centuries? (See Fig. 5.3 of the book chapter I cited for Doug, showing stable [CO2] between 700 and 1900 AD.) Do you think the rise in CO2 and the onset of rapid fossil-fuel burning is a conincidence? We know how much is being added, we know how much of this comes from humans and other sources, we know (pretty much) what the sinks are, and we know CO2’s going up faster than the sinks can respond, over the time scale of decades.
Re Peterd’s comment 10-30am. I have not read the book, but are the authors saying that they are confident that the CO2 in very old bubbles corresponds to the atmospheric concentration at the time?
It is not hard to imagine adsorption or solution mechanisms which would cause “bubbled” CO2 concentrations quite different from the actual atmospheric amounts.
Doug: “Any rises from now in carbon dioxide concentration are meaningless from a climate point of view. Almospheric radiation absorbance by the gas is on a logarithmically declining curve, and we are already on the very flat part of such a curve. From memory, the first 20ppm of carbon dioxide absorbs more than the next three hundred ppm.”
Doug: the radiative forcing (not “absorbance”, which is an entirely different term with a quite precise meaning in spectroscopy) due to CO2 is indeed logarithmically related to [CO2] in the range of concentrations seen currently. This is accepted by IPCC and they publish formulae to enable you to calculate the forcing for a given concentration variation. (See, e.g., Chapter 6 of the TAR.) However, logarithmically varying is not the same thing as “meaningless”. I also believe that the effect of the first 20 ppm is not so large, relative to the next 300 ppm, as you’d have it, but I can’t find any figures yet.
Doug: “…but are the authors saying that they are confident that the CO2 in very old bubbles corresponds to the atmospheric concentration at the time?”
Sorry, no time to respond in detail just now, but the short answer is “yes”.
Peterd comment 4-22pm. Extract from “Solar Cycle 24: Implications for the United States’ by David Archibald. ”
“Anthropogenic warming is real, it is also minuscule. Using the MODTRAN facility
maintained by the University of Chicago, the relationship between atmospheric carbon
dioxide content and increase in average global atmospheric temperature is shown in this
graph.
The effect of carbon dioxide on temperature is logarithmic and thus climate sensitivity
decreases with increasing concentration. The first 20 ppm of carbon dioxide has a greater
temperature effect than the next 400 ppm. The rate of annual increase in atmospheric
carbon dioxide over the last 30 years has averaged 1.7 ppm. From the current level of 380
ppm, it is projected to rise to 420 ppm by 2030.”
Peterd, I’m sure I would agree to many of your thoughts about the environment but on climate, however, there are numerous well meaning individuals who have allowed a weak media and propagandists to convince them that in accepting the alarmist view that they are carbon sinners, that they are in fact displaying intelligence and virtue. I simply find this profoundly disquieting.
If I may indulge myself in some small way it may provide an explanation of sorts. Over fifty years ago I formed quite formative views about nature and our place in an infinite environment. I grew up spending my time playing in the bush, gullies and hills that surrounded our home in outback nsw. My parents trusted my motives and these experiences in the bush aroused great curiosity about life that could be beautiful and chaotic, ancient and new, peaceful and cruel in the extreme as well as forever changing. It is not surprising that I believe that the universe is infinite and a connected whole, was never created and is far from anthropocentric. Don’t believe that this is meant to be anything extraordinary because for a curious kid it is quite the norm.
Incidentally, I’m not here referring to some choice theory but simply to my need to control my own perceptions. Hence I say that behavior is neither just caused by stimuli in the environment like choice advertising nor is it blind execution of internal plans; rather it is to control input variables. Even more simply put …. purposeful behaviour is controlled input …. i.e. human behaviour results from controlling perceptions, not actions. This helps explain my down to earth thoughts and well developed crap detectors when it comes to much that is best understood as control. i.e. Being in control of your own life is good however being out of control is a sign of mental illness and control is only considered bad when other people try to control you.
For this reason I see the true denialists are the alarmist AGWers who and just on the comment you have made here DENY …. CO2 as essential to life describing it as a dangerous pollutant and likening it with the Ebola virus. I certainly find this nonsense plainly illogical. So far every last scrap of existing scientific evidence confirms overwhelmingly that industrial CO2 release is good for people and enhances the biosphere/environment.
If you wish to take off the blinker go to Roy’s article at …..
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/more-carbon-dioxide-please/#more-1179
Peterd, I’m sure I would agree to many of your thoughts about the environment but on climate, however, there are numerous well meaning individuals who have allowed a weak media and propagandists to convince them that in accepting the alarmist view that they are carbon sinners, that they are in fact displaying intelligence and virtue. I simply find this profoundly disquieting.
If I may indulge myself in some small way it may provide an explanation of sorts. Over fifty years ago I formed quite formative views about nature and our place in an infinite environment. I grew up spending my time playing in the bush, gullies and hills that surrounded our home in outback nsw. My parents trusted my motives and these experiences in the bush aroused great curiosity about life that could be beautiful and chaotic, ancient and new, peaceful and cruel in the extreme as well as forever changing. It is not surprising that I believe that the universe is infinite and a connected whole, was never created and is far from anthropocentric. Don’t believe that this is meant to be anything extraordinary because for a curious kid it is quite the norm.
Incidentally, I’m not here referring to some choice theory but simply to my need to control my own perceptions. Hence I say that behavior is neither just caused by stimuli in the environment like choice advertising nor is it blind execution of internal plans; rather it is to control input variables. Even more simply put …. purposeful behaviour is controlled input …. i.e. human behaviour results from controlling perceptions, not actions. This helps explain my down to earth thoughts and well developed crap detectors when it comes to much that is best understood as control. i.e. Being in control of your own life is good however being out of control is a sign of mental illness and control is only considered bad when other people try to control you.
For this reason I see the true denialists are the alarmist AGWers who and just on the comment you have made here, DENY …. CO2 as essential to life describing it as a dangerous pollutant and likening it with the Ebola virus. I certainly find this nonsense plainly illogical. So far every last scrap of existing scientific evidence confirms overwhelmingly that industrial CO2 release is good for people and enhances the biosphere/environment.
If you wish to take off the blinker go to Roy’s article at …..
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/more-carbon-dioxide-please/#more-1179
Doug: “Anthropogenic warming is real, it is also minuscule. Using the MODTRAN facility maintained by the University of Chicago, the relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide content and increase in average global atmospheric temperature is shown in this graph [ ]. The effect of carbon dioxide on temperature is logarithmic and thus climate sensitivity decreases with increasing concentration. The first 20 ppm of carbon dioxide has a greater temperature effect than the next 400 ppm. The rate of annual increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last 30 years has averaged 1.7 ppm. From the current level of 380 [385] ppm, it is projected to rise to 420 ppm by 2030.”
Doug,
thanks, your post reminded me that I should have gone to MODTRAN myself for the data, as I already had the link for that and have used it in the past. I don’t know why I forgot. (Well, maybe I do, but let’s not go there….)
http://forecast.uchicago.edu/Projects/modtran.orig.html
Yes, it seems you’re right, and I was wrong. From this program, we can indeed see that the effect of changing from 0 to 20 ppm is greater than the effect in going from 20 to 420 ppm.
Incidentally, Archibald’s use of Dave Archer’s version of MODTRAN has been criticised by Dave Archer himself. See, e.g., Archer’s post at RealClimate:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/my-model-used-for-deception/
Also, given the current annual rate of growth of CO2, at ~2 ppm/yr and apparently increasing, we’re likely to be at 420 ppm CO2 by about 2024-2025, rather than 2030, but that’s a very minor quibble.
Doug,
I was going to reply by quoting extra material from the Oeschger/Stauffer book chapter, but while I was searching around on my PC, I came across a link to Tim Lambert’s Deltoid pages, where some of the issues arising from measuring CO2 and other trace gases in ice cores were discussed, in 2005:
http://timlambert.org/2005/01/hissink3/
There are even one or two guest appearances there by the inimitable Louis. He didn’t come up then with any decisive refutations of the “paradigm” that ice cores yield reliable measurements of trace gases in ancient atmospheres, and I doubt that he could do so now.
It might be that one can relate the CO2 ice core data to atmospheric CO2 concentrations. However, such a concentration is the result of the Earth’s CO2 balance, but not the balance itself. The Earth’s CO2 balance comprises the natural and anthropogenic emission of CO2 and its uptake by vegetation and the ocean.
Lowering, for instance, the anthropogenic emission of CO2 to those of the year 1990 would not reduce the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. This is quite understandable. During that time there was already an increase in the atmospheric CO2 concentration because the anthropogenic and natural emission of CO2 was higher than the uptake by the terrestrial biosphere (plants and soils) and the ocean. Thus, a reduction of anthropogenic CO2 emission would lower the increase of the atmospheric CO2 concentration, but not the concentration itself. If the CO2 uptake would raise due to a higher atmospheric CO2 concentration, a stabilization of this concentration at a level higher than that of 1990 might be possible.
We should assess ice core data carefully. The ice core CO2 results of Neftel et al. (1982, 1985), for instance, reflect a poor scientific standard. Nevertheless, in the 4th report of the Working Group I of the IPCC, “Historical Overview of Climate Change Science” (chapter 1) the papers of Neftel et al. from 1982 and 1985 plaid a prominent role. Let me quote it:
“To place the increase in CO2 abundance since the late 1950s in perspective, and to compare the magnitude of the anthropogenic increase with natural cycles in the past, a longer-term record of CO2 and other natural greenhouse gases is needed. These data came from analysis of the composition of air enclosed in bubbles in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica. The initial measurements demonstrated that CO2 abundances were significantly lower during the last ice age than over the last 10 kyr of the Holocene (Delmas et al., 1980; Berner et al., 1980; Neftel et al., 1982). From 10 kyr before present up to the year 1750, CO2 abundances stayed within the range 280 ± 20 ppm (Indermühle et al., 1999). During the industrial era, CO2 abundance rose roughly exponentially to 367 ppm in 1999 (Neftel et al., 1985; Etheridge et al., 1996; IPCC, 2001a) and to 379 ppm in 2005 (Section 2.3.1; see also Section 6.4).”
In the paper of Neftel et al. entitled “Ice core sample measurements give atmospheric CO2 content during the past 40,000 years” (1982, Nature 295, 220-223) one can find values of CO2 concentration more than 400 ppmV. These values, however, were neglected in their estimate range of the CO2 concentration during the past 40,000 years. The reason is explained by the authors as following:
“The originally recovered Camp Century and Boyd Station cores are generally of poor quality between the 400 and 1,200 m depths and the ice is heavily fractured. In these depth intervals the measured CO2 values exhibit large scattering. This might be due to contamination by drilling fluid, a mixture of diesel fuel (88%) and trychlorethylene (12%), penetrating through small cracks into the ice. In these fractured ice zones, we measured several samples at each sample depth. Its small size meant that the sample was probably uncontaminated and we conclude that the lowest CO2 values best represent the CO2 concentrations of the originally trapped air of these depth intervals. In the larger samples (300 g) contamination is almost inevitable and the measured CO2 concentrations tend to be higher than the air originally occluded in the ice. This is one reason for the high CO2 values obtained during the climate optimum given by Berner et al. for the Camp Century core.”
Note that two co-authors of Berner et al. (1980, Radiocarbon 22, 227-235), namely Oeschger and Stauffer, are also co-authors of Neftel et al. (1982). The excerpt from the paper of Neftel et al. (1982) clearly states that the ice cores were of poor quality, and it might be that they were contaminated also by drilling fluid. In addition, the choice whether a measured CO2 value was acceptable or not was made rather arbitrarily. Has this something to do with the level of commonly accepted scientific standards?
In another paper of Neftel et al. (1985) entitled “Evidence from polar ice cores for the increase in atmospheric CO2 in the past two centuries” (Nature 315, 45-47) the authors (again Oeschger and Stauffer were co-authors) described the procedure for determining the time lag between the mean age of the gas and the age of the ice as following:
“Based on porosity measurements, the time lag between the mean age of the gas and the age of the ice was determined to be 95 yr and the duration of the close-off process to be 22 yr (ref. 4). Theses values are, of course, evaluated for one particular core representing the present situation (1983), assuming a homogeneous enclosure process and do not taking into account the sealing effect of observed impermeable layers.”
Later the authors stated:
“The measurements using the needle crusher, published previously [there are three references, one of them is Neftel et al., 1982 mentioned before], were performed using a slightly modified procedure and exhibited generally lower CO2 concentrations by 15 p.p.m.v. …. In 1982 an intercalibration study with the Grenoble laboratory [it follows one of the three references mentioned before] was performed using the small crusher with the older measuring procedure. Based on our new results, the agreement of the intercalibration must be viewed as a discrepancy, which we will try to resolve in the near future with a new intercalibration series.”
Obviously, there existed various problems with all these ice core analysis attempts. It seems to me that these problems have been ignored because the results of Neftel et al. (1982, 1985) serve to extrapolate the Keeling curve back to the 18th century.