The following chart is largely self-explanatory:
Red: The actual rise of atmospheric CO2 from 1966 to 2006
Pink: The actual rise of human emissions within that 40 year timeframe (starting point at 321 ppm for comparison)
Blue: Human emissions multiplied by 24.41 to parallel atmospheric CO2 growth
Black: The human emissions slope as it would be if CO2 had stagnated in the atmosphere
Gray line: Accumulating atmospheric human emissions with a yearly retention rate of 0.56 — meaning that 44% is absorbed yearly, which contradicts the assertion that CO2 remains in the atmosphere for hundreds or thousands of years.
Alan Siddons
Holden, Massachusetts
————–
Data sources are from the US government’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC):
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/co2/maunaloa.co2
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/ndp030/global.1751_2004.ems
But here’s the trick: How do you convert gigatons of carbon into ppm so you can compare the human and atmospheric trend? Well, CDIAC informs you: Divide gigatons by 2.13.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/faq.html#Q6
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
this is the crux of the matter…and govt’s need to be asked this same question…show us the proof of why you are going to tax us…i like u jen challenge anyone to provide such proof…show us the actual scientific paper, give us the links, something we dare you??????
There are a couple of problems with this chart. One line ends between 1986 and 1996 (Accumulated CO2??). The other problem is the data; the data of the links end in 2004 (and not 2006). But maybe Alan can explain.
A hypothetical accumulate would have been about 430 ppm. Making room for that obscured more important details. Atmospheric CO2 increase for 2005 and 2006 taken from http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
and adding it to CDIAC’s figures. Estimated human emissions for those two years are extrapolated from the 1966 to 2004 trend.
Alan, you (or perhaps Jennifer) say that the chart is largely self-explanatory. That may be so, but to this poor old soul some more explanation would be useful.
Sure, Mondo. Since we’re told that the rising carbon dioxide trend is due to humans, it’s important to note first that the rate of atmospheric CO2 growth is roughly 25 times greater than the human emissions rate. Many people insist that this disparity is irrelevant, however. They allege that human CO2 stays in the air for a very long time, so that one year’s emissions are piled onto the years before, and this is why the CO2 level climbs higher every year.
The problem with this accumulation idea, though, is that in order for it to work, a sizable fraction of each year’s emissions have to disappear. Otherwise, the growth rate would be faster than the observed rate, as indicated in black. So a correction factor (here, 0.56) allows 44% of each year’s emissions to be erased, having been absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial biosphere.
But this “solution” creates an insurmountable problem. At a retention rate of 56% per year, a year’s emission of carbon dioxide will effectively be gone in about 10 years. This means that emissions could only accumulate for around a decade or so, certainly not for centuries, because what HAD been adding to the atmosphere has disappeared now. And what IS there is getting steadily absorbed.
Imposing a large correction factor on an imaginary accumulation is therefore self-defeating: To explain the present level, you need 1966’s emissions to STAY in the air and suffer no more absorption — yet at a yearly retention rate of 56%, 1966’s carbon dioxide can no longer BE there! Nor 1967’s. Nor 1968’s. And so on. All of that has already been recycled.
One more detail. Since annual CO2 emissions from natural sources vastly exceed human sources, a 0.56 correction for natural CO2 accumulation would make the atmosphere climb at a rate of around 55 ppm each year instead of 1 or 2 ppm. The accumulation model, you see, only applies to the human brand of CO2. Nature’s brand is exempt.
Thanks for the explanation Alan. I see what you are saying now. A good point, well made.
Alan Siddons
“The accumulation model, you see, only applies to the human brand of CO2. Nature’s brand is exempt.”
It’s actually even worse – those CO2 molecules stamped “Made in Australia” are much more evil than those stamped “Made in India/China”
We are 100% certain that the increase in CO2 is due to humans. We are 100% behind the imbalance between sources and sinks of CO2.
As for “contradicts the assertion that CO2 remains in the atmosphere for hundreds or thousands of years”, please read the literature and spare us the strawman. The effective half life depends entirely on how fast you add the CO2, how fast you perturb climate (ie make it hotter), and how you pose the question. If we add CO2 really fast the half life becomes 1000s of years as the natural CO2 sinks will turn into sources. If we add it really slowly the CO2 half life will be matter of months as nature cleans up our mess.
Jen, what purpose is served by providing a forum for material like this?
“Jen, what purpose is served by providing a forum for material like this?”
Gosh your main post was unsupported and your criticism of Alan’s was not explained either.
I detect your snobbery and I detest it.
Alan – “We Aren’t Responsible for Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide”
So what is causing the rise?
It is instructive to go to this site and look at Figure 2: http://www.eia.doe.gov/bookshelf/brochures/greenhouse/Chapter1.htm
Exchange between the oceans and the atmosphere is about 90 gigatonnes per annum and between the biosphere and the atmosphere 120 gigatonnes per annum. The total of 210 is one quarter of the CO2 in the atmosphere. So the whole of the atmospheric CO2 turns over in less than four years. Therefore the average residence time of any CO2 molecule emitted into the atmosphere is less than two years. Given that CO2 is highly soluble in water and that the lag to partial pressure equilibrium of any CO2 increment is less than two years, what has caused atmospheric CO2 to rise? The answer is heating of a portion of the oceans. When the world cools next decade, atmospheric CO2 will decline as the oceans suck that CO2 back down. Mauna Loa CO2 is only up 1 ppm year on year for the last year. The warmers will go beserk when it starts going backwards.
Alan,
The arguement I have heard is that isotope ratios can be used to distinguish between CO2 molecules emitted from nature and CO2 molecules from fossil fuels. The number CO2 modules with the fossil fuel signature is increasing at the rate expected.
You will need to address the isotope ratio issue if you want your analysis to be taken seriously outside of a few sceptical blogs.
You can find more information on isotope question here:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html
I’ve looked at roughly the same data, and I get a completely different (and clear) result. My post on the topic is here. A graph of the detrended cumulative CO2 and atmospheric CO2 series is here . I don’t think this is deniable.
One thing is true, though. CDIAC might be underreporting emissions by some factor. I don’t know why – maybe it’s because of feedbacks or something. However, the detrended series match, and the atmospheric series lags the cumulative emissions series a bit.
(Sorry, didn’t realize URLs are removed here, but click on my name and see the latest post).
Joseph,
Urls are not removed … atleast not if provided without html formatting. in short, just provide the url as you would other text.
David,
In response to your comment about why I posted the note from Alan Siddon: If Alan Siddon has got something wrong, just explain that to us. Indeed you have to some extent. But I am interested in understanding how your comment (“The effective half life depends entirely on how fast you add the CO2, how fast you perturb climate (ie make it hotter), and how you pose the question. If we add CO2 really fast the half life becomes 1000s of years as the natural CO2 sinks will turn into sources. If we add it really slowly the CO2 half life will be matter of months as nature cleans up our mess.”) would change Alan’s principle conclusion?
And remember almost nothing is sacred here!
I attach a link to the Mauna Loa CO2 measurement site.
It is a bit early to be certain, but it is possible to suggest that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are leveling out.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
That might prove very hard to explain for an AGW proponent.
A simpler explanation would be that the oceans are cooling so the equilibrium between oceanic gas and the atmosphere is shifting.
David Archibald recommended reading this link, which I’ve done.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/bookshelf/brochures/greenhouse/Chapter1.htm
Here are two real basic questions [I am not a scientist].
1. Figures 1 and 5 both show worldwide CO2 emissions at about 28 gigatons this year.
But both the explanation after Figure 1 and Figure 2 say that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions produced each year (measured in carbon equivalent terms) are 7.2 gigatons. I don’t get why those two numbers (28 and 7.2) are different.
2. The EIA explanation after Figure 1 also says that out of the 7.2 gigatons of emissions, 1 gigaton goes to sinks, leaving a net 6.2 gigatons, out of which 4.1 gigatons are added to the atmosphere annually. What happens to the other 2.1 gigatons [6.2 minus 4.1]?
Thanks.
John
Alan, you can’t keep absorbing 56% of emissions into the oceans or biosphere, EVERY year. To do that it would need to be a bottomless hole effectively. The CO2 sinks are limited, so each year there is less and less absorbed.
You also cannot say that after x number of years all of 1966’s CO2 has been absorbed either.
For argument’s sake let’s say in 1966 the CO2 level is say, 300ppm and Human’s added 10ppm, assuming the ocean is in equilibrium with 300ppm and is absorbing excess CO2 we lose 5.6ppm to the ocean. So the next years CO2 level is 304.4 ppm. The following year humans add 11ppm and 56% of that is removed (as that is the oceans limit of absorption) that means that the 304.4ppm is still there (as the ocean can’t absorb an infinite amount and is in equilibrium) and we have added a further 4.84 ppm. The CO2 that was emitted the previous year doesn’t suddenly get absorbed.
You also haven’t considered partial pressures nor whether there is a lag between CO2 absorption and equilibrium being reached.
Please don’t argue the actual numbers here as they are hypothetical. It’s just to point out that the logic that you can’t have an accumulation of CO2 because the ocean absorbs it is flawed.
NT
John, that’ll teach you for listening to Archibald.
John L,
the difference between 7.2 and 28 (or 26.2 actually) is the difference betweeen carbon and carbon dioxide. The link does make that distinction.
Jennifer I am surprised at the low level of science in this post, there were very basic errors in Alan’s work. Do you actually read things before you post them?
Braddles,
I re-read the EIA article and I don’t see where it clearly distinguishes between carbon and CO2.
The Figure 1 x-axis is “Billion metric tons CO2.”
The explanation cites “7.2 billion metric tons . . . of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions . . . . (measured in carbon equivalent terms) . . . .”
If that’s supposed to be the explanation you suggest, it’s very hard to understand considering their intended readership, which is NOT people who already understand this stuff. So does 7.2 gigatons of carbon equal 26.3 gigatons of CO2?
Why does the explanation after Figure 1 say that an estimated 4.1 billion metric tons are added to the atmosphere annually” but Figure 2 shows 7.2 somethings [carbon or CO2?] being fluxed to the atmosphere?
I don’t get this.
What about my second question anyone.
The EIA explanation after Figure 1 also says that out of the 7.2 gigatons of emissions, 1 gigaton goes to sinks, leaving a net 6.2 gigatons, out of which 4.1 gigatons are added to the atmosphere annually. What happens to the other 2.1 gigatons [6.2 minus 4.1]?
Thanks.
John
Braddles,
I re-read the EIA article and I don’t see where it clearly distinguishes between carbon and CO2.
The Figure 1 x-axis is “Billion metric tons CO2.”
The explanation cites “7.2 billion metric tons . . . of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions . . . . (measured in carbon equivalent terms) . . . .”
If that’s supposed to be the explanation you suggest, it’s very hard to understand considering their intended readership, which is NOT people who already understand this stuff. So does 7.2 gigatons of carbon equal 26.3 gigatons of CO2?
Why does the explanation after Figure 1 say that an estimated 4.1 billion metric tons are added to the atmosphere annually” but Figure 2 shows 7.2 somethings [carbon or CO2?] being fluxed to the atmosphere?
I don’t get this.
What about my second question anyone.
The EIA explanation after Figure 1 also says that out of the 7.2 gigatons of emissions, 1 gigaton goes to sinks, leaving a net 6.2 gigatons, out of which 4.1 gigatons are added to the atmosphere annually. What happens to the other 2.1 gigatons [6.2 minus 4.1]?
Thanks.
John
John, it could be errors in the figures? Maybe a 2 fell off, and the two numbers should be 26 and 27.2? Who knows? It’s just a brochure.
Raven,
Let’s examine Ferdinand Engelbeen’s isotope arguments. Re the C12/C13 ratio, the carbonate at 125 m depth has the same C12/C13 ratio as the atmosphere and they have been tracking each other with no lag. This means almost instantaneous mixing with the oceans and the atmosphere, but it can only be with a portion of the oceans as the whole oceans have 50 to 70 times as much CO2 as the atmosphere, and the whole oceans would dilute the shift away to nothing. According to the graph he provides, there has been a 17% decrease in atmospheric C13 while total atmospheric CO2 has risen 35%. All that seems to be consistent with 50% retention of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere with an infinite half life, consistent with AGW theory.
Let’s go to his C14 argument. C14 has a half life of 5,700 years and he states that its half life in the atmosphere is about 5 years. This latter number is more consistent with the rate of exchange of the atmosphere with the biosphere and oceans, and means that any perturbation in atmospheric CO2 has a half life of 5 years. The two isotope data sets are inconsistent.
One problem with the IPCC-sourced data is that it seems to be based on big guesses, such as oceanic CO2 being exactly 50 times that of atmospheric CO2.
Anthony Watts recently posted a graphic of the global distribution of atmospheric CO2. There is a 10 ppm gradient between the tropics and the poles. Given that it takes about a month for air to get from the tropics to the poles, that gradient is explained by the annual turnover between the oceans and the atmosphere.
Back to that C12/C13 ratio. It is one thing for the C13 content to have fallen 17% at a depth of 125 metres, but it can’t have fallen 17% over the total ocean depth of 3,000 metres because that would have required the addition of 20% more carbon dioxide to the whole system – ten times the amount in the atmosphere.
What is needed is a lot more whole ocean profiling of C12, C13 and C14 and better quantification of the amount of CO2 in the oceans. In the meantime, I will believe that 5 year half life figure for C14 in the atmosphere to mean that the half life of all CO2 molecules in the atmosphere is five years.
Thought I’d post this again as everyone seems to have gone off topic.
Alan, you can’t keep absorbing 56% of emissions into the oceans or biosphere, EVERY year. To do that it would need to be a bottomless hole effectively. The CO2 sinks are limited, so each year there is less and less absorbed.
You also cannot say that after x number of years all of 1966’s CO2 has been absorbed either.
For argument’s sake let’s say in 1966 the CO2 level is say, 300ppm and Human’s added 10ppm, assuming the ocean is in equilibrium with 300ppm and is absorbing excess CO2 we lose 5.6ppm to the ocean. So the next years CO2 level is 304.4 ppm. The following year humans add 11ppm and 56% of that is removed (as that is the oceans limit of absorption) that means that the 304.4ppm is still there (as the ocean can’t absorb an infinite amount and is in equilibrium) and we have added a further 4.84 ppm. The CO2 that was emitted the previous year doesn’t suddenly get absorbed.
You also haven’t considered partial pressures nor whether there is a lag between CO2 absorption and equilibrium being reached.
Please don’t argue the actual numbers here as they are hypothetical. It’s just to point out that the logic that you can’t have an accumulation of CO2 because the ocean absorbs it is flawed.
NT
Wrong wrong wrong. This graphic suggests that the half life of CO2 in the atmosphere is longer than five years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Radiocarbon_bomb_spike.svg
It looks like 10 years.
An effort to address some of the odder responses. I’ve graphically outlined an unsupportable theory, showing the atmosphere’s rate vs the human rate, and different approaches to explain the former by the latter. The accumulation hypothesis SAYS what the retention rate of CO2 is or has to be: an average of 56% per year. Its inherent contradiction consists of imposing this rate only once. For after the factor is applied, a human emission stays in the air basically forever, accumulating on top of all the other emissions.
It’s all very well to apply ‘reasonable assumptions’ and mathematically massage 170 years of data to convince oneself thereby that artificially-produced carbon dioxide’s residence time is far longer than any empirical study has ever concluded. But try focusing on just one year at a time, say from 1996 to 1997.
1996: 362.58 ppm
1997: 363.84 ppm
Global CO2 went up 1.26 ppm. But estimates say that humans added 3.21 ppm to the air in that period. So the atmosphere’s level supposedly should have gone up 3.21 ppm too, not 1.26. According to the accumulation model, then, 39% of human emissions must have stayed in the air that year and 61% be absorbed by the oceans and biosphere — because that “excess” had to go somewhere. Does 61% imply a residence time of decades? Being an imaginary index of an imaginary accumulation, the annual retention/absorption ratio fluctuates wildly but an average of 56:44 can be applied to recent years. And after 44% is absorbed, it simply stops. Every year. The model can’t make human-generated gas accumulate by any other means. It is forced to cheat.
As for isotope ratios and the REAL residence time of carbon dioxide, I’d recommend Tom Segalstad’s series of analyses, but this would divert attention from the matter at hand. What the earth is juggling (emitting and absorbing) throughout every seasonal cycle isn’t 3 ppm of CO2 but something on the order of a hundred ppm — and it juggles this magnitude while recovering from a cold snap that happened just moments ago in geological terms. Warming water outgasses CO2, as everyone knows. While the air contains 820 gigatons of carbon, NT, the slowly-churning oceans have 40,000 to offer. Some of you guys need to get serious, then. The anthropogenic retention/absorption model cannot stand up to scrutiny. To ignore the impact of warming on a water-planet and attribute a rising gas trend to puny human emissions is beyond myopic. It’s plain stupid.
Alan, you are not doing a very good analysis.
You need to learn about partial pressures, equilibrium content of CO2 in oceans at particular temperatures. The amount absorbed by the ocean depends on the concentration in the air, the concentration already dissolved in the ocean and the temperature. So “Its inherent contradiction consists of imposing this rate only once.” is actually reasonable assumption. The ocean won’t absorb more of the 1996 CO2 in 1997, if it is in equilibrium with the 1996 level.
“So the atmosphere’s level supposedly should have gone up 3.21 ppm too, not 1.26.” – it would in imaginary land, but this is the planet Earth, where a soluble gas will actually dissolve in water.
“While the air contains 820 gigatons of carbon, NT, the slowly-churning oceans have 40,000 to offer” – this is a pointless thing to say. A colder ocean will hold more CO2 so by warming the planet by adding more CO2 to the atmosphere, we are lowering the capacity of the ocean as a sink.
Also there is no point in trying to work out if Human or ‘natural’ CO2 is being absorbed by sinks. The sinks won’t distinguish between them.
Alan, the atmosphere is accumulating CO2.
Humans are adding CO2 to the atmosphere at a greater rate than is accumulating.
The Earth has a capacity to absorb CO2.
So, why is it unreasonable to expect that the CO2 accumulating is
1. Human generated and
2. Lower than the total Human generated CO2?
This statement is nonsense.
“and it juggles this magnitude while recovering from a cold snap that happened just moments ago in geological terms.”
The Earth doesn’t recover from ice ages. They are not a disease. The present interglacial had already peaked (as they have for the last 35 million years) thousands of years ago. If you look at what happens in the glacial cycles, you’d see that the major loss of CO2 from oceanic heating would have happened somewhere around 6000 years ago. After the peak there is typically a long decline into an ice age.
“The amount absorbed by the ocean depends on the concentration in the air.”
The amount emitted by the ocean depends on its temperature. And this amount determines the concentration in the air. But you just don’t get it, do you? You believe you’re looking at the effect of human accumulation, even though that model makes no sense, even though human emissions are a meager fraction of what the earth processes every year, and you’ll throw nothing but technobabble and empty phrases at people who hold a different view than yours.
You misquoted me Alan.
Here is what I actually wrote “The amount absorbed by the ocean depends on the concentration in the air, the concentration already dissolved in the ocean and the temperature. ”
So yes the temperature is important but it’s not the sole factor.
Here is an interesting read for you.
http://www.tos.org/oceanography/issues/issue_archive/issue_pdfs/14_4/14_4_feely_et_al.pdf
You can see that the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere also determines it’s solubility.
“The amount of [CO2]aq is proportional to the partial pressure of CO2 exerted by seawater. The difference between the pCO2 in surface seawater and that in the overlying air represents the thermodynamic driving potential for the CO2 transfer across the sea surface.”
It’s not a matter of just holding a different view. It’s a matter of you not knowing what you are talking about.
Here Alan,
This explains it better and simpler:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry%27s_Law#Temperature_dependence_of_the_Henry_constant
“At a constant temperature, the amount of a given gas dissolved in a given type and volume of liquid is directly proportional to the partial pressure of that gas in equilibrium with that liquid. ”
So assuming the temp is constant, if you add gas to an atmosphere the amount of the gas dissolved increases.
But with increasing temp, the gas will start coming out of the solvent.
So we have two competing factors.
1. increasing the amount of CO2 in the air puts more CO2 into the water until it reaches equilibrium.
2. Increasing CO2 in the air raises the air temperature (and so the water temp) which decreases the solubility of the gas.
So there is a problem. We are forcong more CO2 into the Oceans by increasing the partial pressure of CO2, but we are also raising the temperature by adding CO2. So eventually the Oceans will stop absorbing CO2 and become net emitters, and as you pointed out the oceans hold a lot of CO2.
This is an enhanced greenhouse effect. This is why people are worried. Once this process starts (and it will – see the Cretaceous) we will not be able to reverse it.
No it won’t be the end of life or the end of the world. Similar scenarios happened in the past and were stable. BUT the transition to that state is bad for life that exists in the transition – they are characterized by extinction events (see the PETM).
“Here are two real basic questions [I am not a scientist].”
Neither is archibald.
Dear oh dear, SJT. Just for that, I will put the same curse on you that I put on the unlamented Luke: When the cooling comes, your constant frothing at the mouth will become an intermittent dribble of spittle, diluted by tears.
NT, the oceans are way undersaturated relative to CO2.
David, yes it is undersaturated. Don’t know about “way”… and it is relative to temp and pH.
It’s not an endless sink as Alan was indicating. Nor is it confusing that the CO2 level goes up by a smaller amount than we put into the atmosphere.
And is this ‘cooling’ in 25000 years?? What cooling are you predicting? Is it the one with the coming solar min that you think won’t end? Let’s say in 2012 when we reach the next solar max that you give up on the cooling claim.
Ah yes, the well known CO2 driven extinction event at the end of the cretaceous when CO 2 levels and temp in pure causal unity went out of control; NT you are shameless;
http://www.junkscience.com/images/paleocarbon.gif
NT
“The CO2 sinks are limited, so each year there is less and less absorbed.”
Both the oceans and the atmosphere are carbon sinks — they store carbon dioxide. Why should one sink suddenly be saturated while the other is not? CO2 is very soluable in water. And if it is true that the oceans are near their max soluability level and have been warming, which reduces the solubility level of CO2, then it is only logical that the warmer waters would be emitting the bulk of the CO2. But this has a problem on its own. The ocean temps dropped in the 1980s, so if they were a large driver of CO2 in the atmosphere, then the warmer water would have absorbed CO2 in the 1980s. The mauna loa data shows a continuous march with only seasonal variation.
Raven’s link even admits that almost half of our emissions are absorbed each year just like Alan showed in the original post above. It says, “[t]he amount of CO2 emitted by humans nowadays is about 7 GtC/yr (CO2 counted as carbon). The increase in the atmosphere is about 4 GtC/yr.” (Note: John Liljegren, that link confirms the 7 that you are questioning.) Amongst other things, this shows that the solubility maximum has not been reached.
John M Reynolds
“Both the oceans and the atmosphere are carbon sinks — they store carbon dioxide. Why should one sink suddenly be saturated while the other is not?”
Did you read what he said?
“But with increasing temp, the gas will start coming out of the solvent.”
“The warmers will go beserk when it starts going backwards.”
Are you predicting it will? How long will you give before you admit you are wrong?
References to an article called ” The atmosphere’s CO2 increase is human-made” :
Referanser:
Gruber, N. m. fl., 1999. Spatiotemporal patterns of carbon-13 in the global surface oceans and the oceanic Suess effect. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 13, 307-335.
Keeling, C. D. og T. P., Whorf. 2005. Atmospheric CO2 records from sites in the SIO air sampling network. I: Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/contents.htm
Keeling, C. D. m. fl., 2005: Monthly atmospheric 13C/12C isotopic ratios for 10 SIO stations. I: Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/iso-sio/iso-sio.html
Manning, A. C., og R. F. Keeling, 2006: Global oceanic and land biotic carbon sinks from the Scripps atmospheric oxygen flask sampling network. Tellus, 52B(2), 95-116.
Marland, G. m. fl., 2007. Global, Regional, and National CO2 Emissions. I Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A. http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/meth_reg.html
Olsen, A., m. fl., 2006. Magnitude and origin of the anthropogenic CO2 increase and 13C Suess effect in the Nordic Seas since 1981. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 20(GB3027), doi:10.1029/2005GB002669.
Peng, T. H. m. fl., 2003, Increase of anthropogenic CO2 in the Pacific Ocean over the last two decades, Deep-Sea Research II 50, 3065-3082.
Sabine, C. R. m.fl., 1999, Anthropogenic CO2 inventory in the Indian Ocean, Global Biogeochemical Cycles, 13, 179-198.
Takahashi m. fl., 1993. Seasonal variation of CO2 and nutrients in the high-latitude surface oceans: A comparative study. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 7, 843-878.
SJT. With the decreasing ocean temps of the 1980s, the oceans should have been started absorbing more CO2 if we were near the saturation point. — John M Reynolds
With regards to CO2 levels and what they actually are, or maybe..
It might well be worth reading this explanation of Dr. Tans about how the Mauna Loa data is collected and processed.
AND, how much of the actual raw data is simply omitted / discarded, if it does not meet with “the assumptions.”
This link was given by Dr. Tans as an explanation of how the data is collected / processed recently.
It is to a paper (Dr. Tans wrote) apparently published 19 years ago….
http://www.catskill.net/denisenorris/ThoningK_JGR89.pdf
He is “honest” enough to admit that it is out of date though….
But does not offer a more recent explanation. ?
1) DQA. Does this not apply, it does not seem to.
2) Where is a similar paper explaining the process / assumptions for the South Pole data,
as it has such a massive influence on what is collected at Mauna Loa.
Fascinating commentary on ocean temperatures. If I remember correctly, below about 400 metres all the oceans run at about 3 degrees, the maximum density of ater.
In the short term it is the CO2 equilibrium between the [warmer] top water layer and the atmosphere which would appear to matter.
Cohenite, I didn’t say the Cretaceous was a CO2 driven extinction.
The Cretaceous is an example of an enhanced greenhouse effect time in the Earth’s past.
The extinction at the Paleocene Eocene boundary was probably a climate driven one.
NT; a simpler explanation is current circulation blockage at the North Pole creating a refrigerator effect;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Early_Eocene_Arctic_basin.PNG
CO2 level was subsequent effect of this process via the SST decline and greater absorption produced by decling SST’s. The notion of sea saturation and inability to absorb further CO2 is a bit of a red herring; Craig O’Neill’s theory of mantle crust and oceanic recycling accounts for a continuous renewal of ocean capacity for acting a as a sink of CO2.
Anyone care to give a satisfactory explanation as to why some people believe that CO2 is a pollutant and not a nutrient?
Last I checked CO2 is required to sustain life on this planet. Yet, alarmists, like Schmidt and Hansen, pound the drum that it’s a pollutant.
Cross posted.
Here is the relationship between sea surface chlorophyll a (i.e. a key measure of cyanobacterial primary productivity) as measured by the OBPG SeaWiFS satellite processed colour sensing and the daytime SSTs as measured via 11 micron sensing by the MODIS Aqua satellite across the Southern Ocean (SO) (below 30S) for recent years.
Notice the marked seasonal component to primary productivity and the remarkable offset between primary productivity and SSTs. This latter feature shows that for the SO at least it is not SST which drives primary productivity – it is in fact the preceding pulse of CO2 dissolving in the water which allows productivity to rise.
http://reason.gsfc.nasa.gov/OPS/cgi-bin/Giovanni/Giovanni_cgi.pl?west=-180&north=-30&east=180&south=-90&type=3%23Time+Plot+%28point+or+area+averaging%29&Product_A=0%23%23%23SeaWiFS+Chlorophyll+a+concentration&Product_B=5%23%23%23Aqua+Sea+Surface+Temperature+%2811+micron+day%29&landocean=landocean&b_year=1997&b_month=September&e_year=2008&e_month=February&end_date=2008%2F02%2F29&data_limit=126&cbar=cpre&cmin=&cmax=&tpbar=tpdyn&tpmin=&tpmax=&tpint=&asc_res=1.0&global_cfg=.%2Fglobal.cfg.pl&data_sys=mpcomp&pid=ocean&action=Generate+Plot
BTW, I heartily recommend use of this NASA site:
http://reason.gsfc.nasa.gov/OPS/Giovanni/mpcomp.ocean.2.shtml
One of the things the SeaWiFS satellite chlorophyll a measurements show during the last decade is just how volcanic action does stimulate downwind primary productivity. The most dramatic example of that is the continual high primary productivity on the East Patagonia Coastal Shelf region – downwind of the perpetually active Andean volcanoes of Western Patagonia and Southern Chile.
quote One of the things the SeaWiFS satellite chlorophyll a measurements show during the last decade is just how volcanic action does stimulate downwind primary productivity. The most dramatic example of that is the continual high primary productivity on the East Patagonia Coastal Shelf region – downwind of the perpetually active Andean volcanoes of Western Patagonia and Southern Chile.unquote
People forget the biology when they get excited about the absorbtion of CO2: if plankton are responding to volcanic activity then there should be an isotopic signal from the growth surge. My take on teh reduced C13 levels is that it’s not anthropogenic, but a response of starving phytos to their predicament. C4 plankton are less discriminatory than C3 and will pump down more C13. In other words, it’s not the production end which is causing the light C signal, it’s the extraction by oceanic biology.
Certain leachates from volcanic dust are important to the enzymes which fix C — zinc and chromium starvation cause some phytos to switch to C4, which means that a major eruption rich in these leachates should leave a spike in the isotope signal.
Diatoms are interesting. I’d like to see population studies of phytos and diatoms as normally diatoms are silicon limited — perhaps we are adding silicon with our dust-producing civilisation. I don’t know what phytos do to C ratios if their population soars.
http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=2386&archives=true
There’s an interesting NASA picture of the ocean deserts, those areas almost devoid of life. They are expanding. Starvation, C4 metabolism. Shame there is no equivalent picture of the Opal ocean.
Maybe we should all chalk it on our morning mirrors: it’s the biology, stupid.
JF
This post displays such a fundamental level of confusion it took me a long time to untangle it. The fundamental confusion is one of units. On the one hand, we have atmospheric levels of CO2 in GtC or ppmv; on the other hand, we have emissions in GtC/year or possibly ppmv/year. These cannot be compared directly as Alan is doing, any more than energy and power can be, or wealth and income can be (both of these are common errors I see as well).
It is simply improper to plot both types of quantities on the same axis, as Alan has done.
You cannot multiply the emissions RATE by 24.41 to try to fit it to atmospheric LEVELS, as Alan has done.
As to the earth’s response, we can do some simple calculations. From the sources given, we have been adding from 3.3GtC/year (in 1966) to 7.9 GtC/year (in 2004) to the atmosphere from non-biological anthropogenic sources. This is a relatively small percentage compared to natural fluxes, but it is not trivial.
The earth’s response to this is almost surely in between one of two extreme cases. The first extreme case is that the existing sinks have no ability to increase their uptake. This would mean that the entire emissions goes into an increase in atmospheric concentration. This would correspond to an increase of 1.55 ppmv/year in 1966 and 3.71 ppmv/year in 2004.
The other extreme is that the sinks can increase their uptake so much that the atmospheric concentration is kept constant.
The numbers given, which are in at least rough agreement with other sources, indicate that the real response is about halfway in between these extremes (slightly closer to the second case). Why should this be surprising? Why is it some great revelation? How does it discredit anything?
Alan’s later comments also display an inability to distinguish between levels and rates of change.
Jennifer, this post is a grave embarrassment to your blog. You would probably be best off removing it.
Alan’s statement that “the rate of atmospheric CO2 growth is roughly 25 times greater than the human emissions rate” is just plain wrong (and horribly wrong). He actually gets it right later on when he states in a different way that the rate of atmospheric growth is only 44% of the emissions rate. But he does not notice the factor of 60 discrepancy in the two statements.
Hmmm… some paragraphs got transposed. The last paragraph should have been the fourth one. If only preview would keep the paragraph breaks.
“There’s an interesting NASA picture of the ocean deserts, those areas almost devoid of life. They are expanding. Starvation, C4 metabolism. Shame there is no equivalent picture of the Opal ocean.”
It’s another AGW alarmist furphy.
http://classic.nerc.ac.uk/mediawiki/upload/8/8a/Yoder-14-Feb-07.pdf
http://reason.gsfc.nasa.gov/OPS/Giovanni/mpcomp.ocean.2.shtml
Curt
“Jennifer, this post is a grave embarrassment to your blog. You would probably be best off removing it.”
I must agree.
Steve; apart from anything else, does Julian’s idea about the blooms reducing the isotope ratio in a way similar to the anthropogenic imput have any legs?
Julian is presumably partly harking back to Quay et al. 1992 I guess.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/256/5053/74
“The dgr13C value of the dissolved inorganic carbon in the surface waters of the Pacific Ocean has decreased by about 0.4 per mil between 1970 and 1990. This decrease has resulted from the uptake of atmospheric CO2 derived from fossil fuel combustion and deforestation. The net amounts of CO2 taken up by the oceans and released from the biosphere between 1970 and 1990 have been determined from the changes in three measured values: the concentration of atmospheric CO2, the dgr13C of atmospheric CO2 and the dgr13C value of dissolved inorganic carbon in the ocean. The calculated average net oceanic CO2 uptake is 2.1 gigatons of carbon per year. This amount implies that the ocean is the dominant net sink for anthropogenically produced CO2 and that there has been no significant net CO2 released from the biosphere during the last 20 years.”
Unfortunately, for cyanobacteria it’s complex. It depends upon whether you are looking at the lipids in the cyanobacteria or the sugars (carbohydrates). It has been shown that sugars may be significantly enriched in 13C relative to lipids in cyanobacteria and other Calvin cycle photoautotrophs:
Deines, P. 1980. The isotopic composition of reduced organic carbon, p. 329-406. In P. Fritz and J. C. Fontes (ed.), Handbook of environmental isotope geochemistry. Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Van Dongen, B. E., S. Schouten, and J. S. Sinninghe Damsté. 2002. Carbon isotopic variability in algal and terrestrial carbohydrates. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 232:83-92
This means that the lipids would be correspondingly depleted in 13C. However, in some cyanobacteria lipids outweigh sugars, carbohydrates etc, in others it is the reverse.
So you would have to actually isolate a particular genus of cyanobacteria and look at 13C fractionation of its lipid and/or carbohydrate fractions (whichever is the dominant, mass-wise).
Actually this may not be as big a problem as one might think as most primary productivity is dominated by the picocyanobacteria (pico = very small) Prochlorococcus spp and its larger cousin Synechococcus spp.
Provided you could identify the major species it may be possible to classify blooms in terms of anthropogenic or natural CO2 taken up on the basis of the net 13C fractionation exhibited by both the sugar and lipid fractions.
I’m just winging it here, but there may possibly be something in what Julian says on at least (say) a regional and/or species-dominated bloom basis.
We have to remember that a significant (lesser) fraction of carbon taken up by cyanobacteria is returned to the water through heterotrophic ‘dark decay’ of dead and busted-up (‘lysed’) cyanobacterial cell contents.
I’ll have to check the literature again but I would suspect that papers like Quay et al. 1992 are dodgy because of this problem of ‘internal recycling’ in the ocean between dissolved inorganic carbon and some of the organic carbon.
First rule of thumb on ‘Life’ should be – it’s always a jungle in there! Humankind are of course no exception to this rule.
The problem with Alan’s graph is that he assumes that the 0.6 is constant.
I did the math. In 1966, the atmosphere had 321.34 ppm of CO2. That year, we output 1.55 ppm. Assuming 60 percent of that was absorbed, then the 321.34 should be (1.55*0.6 = ) 0.93 ppm above 1665. Since 1966 is 1.25 ppm larger than 1965, either the 0.6 is wrong, or some of the rise was natural.
Here is the calculation for 2004. The concentration went from 375.61 ppm in 2003 to 377.43 ppm in 2004 for an increase of 1.82 ppm. We contributed 3.71*0.6 = 2.23 ppm. So for 2004, the earth or oceans absorbed more than what we contributed, or the 0.6 is wrong.
Here is my graph:
http://users.vianet.ca/paulak2r/AGW/CO2Accum.JPG
The blue A line is the accumulation of the human emissions times 60%. The red N line is the yearly rise in measurements.
John M Reynolds
But as you show yourself, John, a 0.56 factor provides the most accurate fit. The gray line on my chart nearly disappears inside the red line. 0.56 is an average. The actual imaginary retention from 1966 to 2006 varies between 0.96 and 0.25. Only by imposing a ONE-TIME reduction can one obtain a year by year fit. Thereafter, the emission must REMAIN in the atmosphere in order to be part of the ppm level. This is how the accumulation model works and the accumulation model is therefore bogus.
Julian, units are provided by the CDIAC itself. 8 Gt of the carbon component of CO2 lofted in the air equals 3.76 ppm. You haven’t “untangled” anything. The 24.41 multiplier line is meant to demonstrate the absurdity of such an approach.
So it remains: The rate of atmospheric climb vastly exceeds the anthropogenic rate. Reading this thread, it has amazed me that many people cannot see what’s right in front of them. Rather than LOOK at the data and think for a moment, they automatically assume that the person who compiled the data is stupid.
I see. So, using the average 56% for simplicity, you are suggesting that 56% of what we emit this year will be retained. As well, 56% of what is left of what we emitted last year will be retained. Going back another year, 56% of the 56% that was left of what we emitted two years ago will be retained.
The black line, would then be if none of our emissions were absorbed and were simiply added to the 321 ppm level. I will endeavour to make another graph tonight to see if I can match yours.
John M Reynolds
Alan: When you’re in a hole, stop digging! You are still simultaneously arguing that the rate of atmospheric increase is almost 25 times the anthropogenic emissions and that it is less than half. They cannot both be true. (Hint: the second one is true.)
You still have not come to grips with your mistake in units. You cannot — repeat, cannot — directly compare GtC and GtC/year. The factor of 2.13 given by CDIAC is just a conversion factor between like units, just as 25.4 is the conversion factor to get from inches to millimeters. But just as you cannot compare a length (in inches or millimeters) to a velocity, you cannot compare levels of carbon in GtC to rates of emissions in GtC/year.
John, “will be retained” ACCORDING TO THE MODEL, which I reject for the reasons stated above. There is actually no way for an accumulation model to work. Supposing a long residence time, a raw accumulation of yearly emissions wildly overshoots the observed trend. So one must impose a large absorption figure for each year to obtain a fit — yet rapid absorption directly contradicts a long residence time. In addition, that 0.56 correction factor has to imposed only once in order to KEEP the emitted mass in the air; it is simply a mathematical manipulation of a data point that has nothing to do with reality.
Gawd, if one person can GET this idea — that human accumulation cannot be occurring and that we’re looking at a totally OTHER phenomenon — perhaps the abuse I’ve gotten will have been worth it.
A couple of sources to refer to
http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2007/06/on_why_co2_is_known_not_to_hav.html
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.htm
Thanks for replying.
Alright. I was able to reproduce the graph at lunch. I still chose not to add 321 to each figure, and I switched from 60% to 56%. Here is my graph:
http://users.vianet.ca/paulak2r/AGW/CO2Accum56.jpg
I added in the black line 100% accumulation line. I also changed my spreadsheet formula from =H220*0.6+L219 to =H220*0.56+L219*0.56 for the pink line. I did not add in the other lines as they seem to have clouded the issue in this discussion. I see two significant related points in this: short residency of less than 10 years and past year emissions also being absorbed at the average of 56%. I was trying to come at it from the other perspective of saturation level, but there is too little data there (and it is off mostly topic). Of course, also important is how they estimated the total anthropogenic emissions in your second link. If it was only calculated based on a percent of the general rise in CO2 in the atmosphere, then this analysis may be all for naught.
I would like to know why some people think that the 56% should not be applied to our emissions from previous years.
Here is a link to my calculations and graph if anyone would like to see them:
http://users.vianet.ca/paulak2r/AGW/CO2Accum56.ods
It is in OpenOffice 3.0 Beta Calc format
John M Reynolds
So maybe you’ve gotten the point. It’s like trying to build a wall out of disappearing bricks. If 44% of the bricks have vanished (been absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial biosphere) by the time you’re ready to assemble the second layer (the next year’s emissions), this loss might be acceptable once per layer. But if this rate persists as you work along, then the first AND second layers are shorter by the time you start building the third layer. And so on. You’ll never be able to build a solid wall of 40 layers.
In 40 years, the atmosphere went up 60 ppm. My calculations indicate that 40 years of human emissions with a 56% retention rate per year would total 18 or 19 ppm by 2006, when a measurement is taken. Even on the basis of an accumulation model, then, it’s obvious that another source is adding most of the CO2.
No, the CDIAC figures refer to gigatons C per year, not to a percentage of the atmosphere’s carbon contents. But assuming the atmosphere weighs 5.14 million gigatons, then converting human emissions to ppm simply entails dividing that mass by 2.13. Thus the total mass of atmospheric carbon DIOXIDE is 3007 gigatons, the carbon content is 820 gigs, the supposed increase from 1850 is 213 gigs, and at the present rate man is contributing about 8 gigs of carbon a year. Yet the atmosphere is rising at 3.2 gigatons per year. Thus the desperate attempt to cut the impact of each year’s emissions and then arbitrarily suspend further absorption. Only these two tricks can make human accumulation seem plausible. (And NEVER mention that nature’s yearly carbon emissions are about 220 gigatons per year. That would destroy the mathematical illusion you’re trying to create.)
Alan – it worries me that you are persistently expressing atmospheric CO2 in units of ppm, not ppmv. ppmv = parts per million by volume.
By inference this means that the conversion to mass (e.g. Gigatonnes, NOT Gigatons note) must be applied in a mathematically correct manner right the way through any formulae.
I haven’t been following these more more recent posts due to personal workload but I wonder whether this is an issue?
Another quick and nasty way to look at this is the fact that over the last 26 atmospheric CO2 has been rising smoothly at the (exponential) rate of 0.450%/year (R^2 = 0.9951). Most recently anthropogenic emissions has been rising at a rate of 3.3%/year. This means that the oceans are (right now) removing 3.3-0.45/3.3 or some 86% of anthropogenic emissions by definition.
Steve Short, the last link in the post has 2.13 as the answer to the “In terms of mass, how much carbon does 1 part per million by volume of atmospheric CO2 represent?” question. So it appears all measurements are actually in ppmv.
The fact that the oceans and biosphere are absorbing much of the anthropogenic emissions is the problem.
John M Reynolds
“The fact that the oceans and biosphere are absorbing much of the anthropogenic emissions is the problem.”
Absorbing it in a single year by an average of 44% and with no absorption thereafter. A one-time reduction to fit the annual measurement (and ignoring 220 other gigatons that year) and then it stays in the air forever. Maybe you don’t get it after all.
jmrSudbury (non-linkable)
“Steve Short, the last link in the post has 2.13 as the answer to the “In terms of mass, how much carbon does 1 part per million by volume of atmospheric CO2 represent?” question. So it appears all measurements are actually in ppmv.”
John M Reynolds”
(1) That in fact was precisely my point – all atmospheric CO2 levels have ALWAYS been given in ppmv (not the ppm term Alan persists in using). In science just ‘ppm’ is customarily a m/v unit. I am always rendered uncomfortable by people who use the wrong units nomenclature and don’t appreaciate what System International (SI) was all about e.g. ppm instead of ppmv, tons instead of tonnes, l instead of L, Gt instead of Gt/year etc etc. From long experience, I have often found the math of such people is often dodgy as well.
(2) OK, I tried to use your link. Being in the relatively obscure OpenOffice 3.0 Beta Calc format that it is, I had to use Google Docs (which opens a generic spreadsheet). However in that format all the content of your Black, Red and Pink columns return a Parse Error (Formula Error) and are thus blocked from inspection. I also note the spreadsheet is incredibly light-on for explanatory text detail. Even as a working scientist I might still find it hard to follow. I’d be very grateful if you could post an Excel-compatible spreadsheet. I am definitely not a Microsoft fan myself (prefer das gut German Softmaker Office 2008, rechtig!) but as Midnight Oil would say …the time has come to say ‘fairs, fair’.
“The fact that the oceans and biosphere are absorbing much of the anthropogenic emissions is the problem.”
Problem? What problem??????
My spreadsheet opens fine in OpenOffice 2 as well. I put it online in excel 97/2000/xp format for you:
http://users.vianet.ca/paulak2r/AGW/CO2Accum56.xls
The formulae are all referenced in this thread. Column H’s =I219/1000/2.13 formula converts the GtC from the second link to ppmv added in that year from anthropogenic sources.
The first link is already in ppmv, so I just had to subtract one year’s measurement from the previous to get the amount contributed that year. To that I added the previous year’s contribution total to get a running increase in column M which is the red line on the graph.
Column K (black line on the graph) is the running accumulation of anthropogenic sources if the oceans and biosphere were miraculously able to distinguish between them and natural sources and only reabsorb naturally emitted CO2.
Column L (Pink line on the graph) is Column K with a 56% retention in the atmosphere. This is the line that is under debate here.
John M Reynolds
Good grief, Steve. Anthropogenic units are in pppmv, ppm for short, the same units used for the atmospheric slope. You’re barking up the wrong tree. Didn’t you see the data sources? I’d tell you to take the issue up with the CDIAC except that I’ve confirmed the 2.13 conversion figure myself.
This thread just keeps spiraling downhill.
Alan, you say, “In 40 years, the atmosphere went up 60 ppm. My calculations indicate that 40 years of human emissions with a 56% retention rate per year would total 18 or 19 ppm by 2006, when a measurement is taken. Even on the basis of an accumulation model, then, it’s obvious that another source is adding most of the CO2.”
Add up the 1966-2004 emissions (39 years) from your CDIAC source. It’s a total of 217.7 GtC. Divide this by your precious 2.13 factor to get 102.2 ppmv. This is the amount the atmospheric concentration would have increased had the carbon sinks not increased their uptake. Instead, as you note, the atmospheric concentration only increased about 60 ppmv over this period, which means the carbon sinks did increase their uptake. There is no need to postulate another carbon source to make the numbers work.
John, you ask, “I would like to know why some people think that the 56% should not be applied to our emissions from previous years.” That’s easy. If subsequent emissions stopped in later years, the carbon sinks would continue to eat away at the increase. However, continued emissions outpace the ability of the carbon sinks to remove the accumulation.
A better analogy than Alan’s would be that of a leaky boat with a sump pump in the bilge. For a while, the system is in rough equilibrium, with 220 units of water leaking in during a certain time period, and the pump able to pump out about 220 units in the same time period, thus maintaining a constant height of water in the bilge.
Now, a new leak opens up, contributing an additional 8 units of water in the same time period. This starts raising the height of the water, increasing the pressure at the bottom and letting the sump pump eliminate some more water. But in this time period, it only pumps out an additional 5 units. The 3 units it could not pump out mean that the water level in the bilge is higher at the end of this time period.
In the next time period, if the new leak were patched, the sump pump would continue to pump out more than the original 220 units and start to bring back the water level to its original value. However, if the leak instead continued to grow, it would stay ahead of the sump pump’s ability to pump out water, and the level of water in the bilge would continue to increase.
Curt. Your bilge pump analogy is no good. The increase in CO2 increases the partial pressure. Henry’s law states that the CO2 absorbed by the oceans will increase. As well, the biosphere has been doing well recently with increased uptake of CO2. Your simple analogy is inadequate.
How can you prove that continued emissions outpace the ability of the carbon sinks to remove the accumulation. You even note that the carbon sinks did increase their uptake contrary to your outpace theory.
John M Reynolds
Ummm…I clearly stated that the additional water was “increasing the pressure at the bottom and letting the sump pump eliminate some more water.” That was my (very direct) analog to the increased partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere. (And the sink can increase but still be “outpaced” by a faster increasing source — that is in no sense a contradiction.)
Look, analogies cannot “prove” anything (but they can be illustrative). My analogy was a very simple system that is in line with our observations. My key point is that you do not require another source to make the numbers work out, as Alan asserts and you seem to support.
With regard to CO2, we have two number series that are very good, the anthropogenic emissions rate, and the atmospheric levels. The first is good to a few percent, the second to less than a percent (but even if the errors are quite a bit larger than this, it wouldn’t matter). Comparing these two numbers, we see that the increase in atmospheric concentration is a little less than half of the anthropogenic emissions. So something has to be taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere than was formerly the case. The ocean and biosphere are two logical candidates.
But what the numbers do not compel you to do is to look for an additional CO2 source to make the balance work out. It is possible that there are additional sources (which would require still further increased sinks), but to argue that the numbers require this is simply absurd.
Curt, your persistent mindlock in the face of contrary evidence is disturbing. Let me try to explain reality to you in simple terms that won’t confuse you. Every year the earth handles hundreds of gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions, not ten or less. The present trend of CO2 in the atmosphere indicates that annual absorption is incomplete. The pattern of ice core records suggest that this is to be expected on a warming planet. As the earth warms, it emits more CO2 than it absorbs. And as the earth cools, it absorbs more CO2 than it emits. Accumulation is not the mechanism but a yearly ratio of emission and absorption. Human emissions are a meager fraction of this ratio and do not account for the rising trend.
If you want more detail, here.
Take the IPCC figures for average annual natural and human emissions of carbon dioxide in million metric tons during the 1990s. http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/FTPROOT/environment/057304.pdf
Natural: 770,000
Man-made: 23,100
Total: 793,100
In ppmv terms, the total is 101.55. Notice that human emissions are 2.91% of that total.
Now, between 1966 and 2006, the atmosphere grew at an average rate of 1.51 ppm per year. Assume that this 1.51 ppm represents what the earth did not absorb each year. 1.51 (unabsorbed) divided by 101.55 (emitted) equals 1.49% unabsorbed. Of this 1.49% unabsorbed mass, 2.91% is man-made. So do the math: According to IPCC figures, of the 1.51 ppm of CO2 added to the atmosphere each year, man’s contribution is approximately 0.044 ppm.
These figures don’t factor in progressive outgassing from a warming ocean, so all of this is a static approximation. But it gets you in the ballpark of how little man has to do with the CO2 trend. Additionally, the annual 11,700 leftover listed by the IPCC equals 1.5 ppmv. Thus the above assumption of 1.51 ppm unabsorbed per year is right on the mark.
John
“Column L (Pink line on the graph) is Column K with a 56% retention in the atmosphere. This is the line that is under debate here.”
The formula in Column L (Row 220) i.e. =H220*0.56+L219*0.56 is WRONG.
You are confusing the annual rate of uptake with a fictitious, imposed ‘instantaneous’ rate (actually a ratio).
This was Curt’s point and he is correct.
The L219 term i.e. the CO2 level of the year before, has already been subject to the net of all annual rates of uptake by the oceans etc over all previous years.
Therefore the formula should be =H220*0.56+L219 When you do that you reproduce the Mauna Loa curve (of course).
There is probably a bit of circular logic from your Column H via Column I here as well but that is not the fundamental point (of where you go wrong).
This is just a simple example of differential calculus (or more precisely, a simple finite difference analysis).
There is a truly horrible confusion going on here on the part of you and Alan between rates and ratios.
BTW, as I have said before the Mauna Loa curve is not the annual global mean. Mauna Loa sits in a prevailing wind from the north to north-east i.e. the Northeast Pacific Gyre – a zone of net upwelling. It is now known that Mauna Loa CO2 levels sit about 0.1 – 0.3% above the global mean. It’s trivial point I know but you should be using the NOAA global mean from here:
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/
Steve, what you are describing is the formula I used in my first graph that I posted at August 12, 2008 09:30 PM above:
http://users.vianet.ca/paulak2r/AGW/CO2Accum.JPG
Like I said, column L (Pink line on the graph) is the line that is under debate here. If all of our output was accumulating, then you would be correct; however, the fact that the average retention is only 56% is the problem. As Curt pointed out, the 56% had been decreasing as the data approached 2004. Either less is being emitted naturally, or more is being absorbed by the oceans and biosphere, or a bit of both. The important thing is to figure out where the CO2 is coming from and where it is going and in what quantities. This is the easiest way to figure this all out.
As long as Mauna Loa’s readings are consistantly high by the trivial amount, then that will not affect this discussion one iota.
John M Reynolds
No, I don’t get that offset with your (column L formula changed by me) spreadsheet at all!
When I simply change the formula for column L (Pink line) from:
=H220*0.56+L219*0.56
to
=H220*0.56+L219
AND then pull the formula down in the usual way to transform cells L220 through L257 I get a nice consistent fit to the Mauna Loa line right up to 2004. There is absolutely no deviation at all as one approaches 2004. I have rechecked the formula in all the cells and they are all consistent.
I can only conclude that your original version of the spreadsheet which produced the figure:
http://users.vianet.ca/paulak2r/AGW/CO2Accum.JPG
had a simply formula error in it from somewhere around 1991-2 onwards.
I respectfully suggest you go back and check somehow.
Please note I have made strictly no other changes to your spreadsheet.
Like I had said in my previous posts, the formula I had used was =H220*0.6+L219. Perhaps the difference was in the use of 60% instead of 56%. The exactness is not the issue.
The issue is that our emissions are reduced by almost half each year. As Curt pointed out, the 56% had been decreasing as the data approached 2004. Either less is being emitted naturally, or more is being absorbed by the oceans and biosphere, or a bit of both. The important thing is to figure out where the CO2 is coming from and where it is going and in what quantities. This is the easiest way to figure this all out.
John M Reynolds
Rubbish.
Your spreadsheet, as you directed me to (in MS Excel form), had the following formula in place in Column L, namely =H220*0.56+L219*0.56
I pointed out that it was absolutely incorrect and it should be =H220*0.56+L219
When I copied that (correct) formula down the entire column, the so-called discrepancy between 1991-2 and 2004 in the Mauna Loa curve noted by Curt (who had clearly not checked your spreadsheet thoroughly) disappeared completely.
Now you are trying to wriggle out of the issue by pretending it was =H220*0.6+L219 and sneaking away from the consequences of an obvious error (a shift in formula) in your original spreadsheet around 1991-2.
This is blatantly dishonest behaviour.
You are obviously not prepared to honestly admit there was not one, but two errors in Column L.
Shame on you.
As a working scientist, I am walking away from your amateur, phony pseudo-math nonsense. Now.
Simply stunning. You can literally SHOW people: 100% emitted, 98.5% absorbed, 1.5% left over.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/FTPROOT/environment/057304.pdf
Look at the chart for chrissake. Page 6. That’s the official version of the yearly CO2 climb, of which humans contribute 3%.
98.5% annually absorbed: contradicts a residence time of centuries and contradicts accumulation.
3% human contribution: contradicts what everybody believes.
And this from an OFFICIAL SOURCE.
It is surreal. Data right in front of people yet they cannot see. Eyes don’t work if the brain is hallucinating. Too much interference.
Steve. The August 12, 2008 09:30 PM comment, to which I had directed you previously, used the =H220*0.6+L219 formula. That made the graph linked in that post. For the CO2Accum56 graph, I changed the formula to =H220*0.56+L219*0.56 instead and added the 100% accumulation column. Are you clear now? Can we get back on topic please?
John M Reynolds
Alan – for what it’s worth I agree with you (and Jeff Glassman).
I just got horribly distracted by the silly John M Reynolds and his shonky little CO2Accum56 Excel spreadsheet.
When I downloaded it, it had an error in the (1191) cell I244 (incorrect value ‘6312’) which throws the Mauna Loa simulation line off from that point on (of course) due to the induced error in cell H244 and so on.
This error by John is what caused the distraction with Curt.
BTW, you can easily verify this for yourself – just open the Excel spreadsheet in his “jmrSudbury at August 13, 2008 11:42 AM ” post and look at cells I244 and H244 etc.
Unfortunately, John is not man enough to admit it.
Wow. I had already corrected the 0.6 value in my formula, but apparently, that was not enough. The 0.6 was indeed the wrong number. I should not have rounded to one decimal place. I realized that it was wrong; otherwise, I would not have changed it. I showed both formulae. In my August 13, 2008 post, I said, “I also changed my spreadsheet formula from =H220*0.6+L219 to =H220*0.56+L219*0.56 for the pink line.” I was not trying to deceive. Nothing was hidden. It was just another trivial point that I never felt was worth highlighting. It did not matter if I was off by 4% when I was concerned about whether or not I would see a line that was off by 56%.
In all of this, I made a single mistake. I went from memory when creating the first graph and used 60%. That was my single error. You suggest I made an error in the =H220*0.56+L219*0.56 formula, but you failed to read the August 13, 2008 12:41 AM post of Alan’s just before that switch. That new formula is the whole point being discussed here. You would have to prove it is wrong, except that you admitted that you agree with Alan, so apparently, you agree at least somewhat with the formula. Talk about a lack of consistancy!
I just re-downloaded my spreadsheet. The value 6312 shows in I244 as it is supposed to. The I column does not have the Mauna Loa data, so the Mauna Loa simulation line cannot be thrown off from that point on. At the top of the I column, I even put the word Anthropogenic. I just went to the http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/ndp030/global.1751_2004.ems link, and beside 1991, it has 6312. You did not verify your facts before you wrote that the 6312 was an error. Should I call you silly, say your trivial tangents are shonky, or say that this is blatantly dishonest behaviour on your part?
I trust you will be man enough to admit your mistakes.
John M Reynolds
By the way, at the beginning of my August 13, 2008 04:23 AM post, I even highlighted the change in values when I wrote, “… I switched from 60% to 56%.”
John M Reynolds
Alan, do you bother to read anything I write? You try to tell me that “Every year the earth handles hundreds of gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions, not ten or less.” But I had already said in my first post, “we have been adding from 3.3GtC/year (in 1966) to 7.9 GtC/year (in 2004) to the atmosphere from non-biological anthropogenic sources. This is a relatively small percentage compared to natural fluxes, but it is not trivial.”
In my analogy of the leaky boat with a bilge pump, I started with a natural flux of 220 (using the number you provided) and added just 8 as the analog to anthropogenic emissions. What did I say that would lead you to believe that I did not realize this?
As to your bigger points, what is so absurd about a model that says that the earth has been in (approximate) equilibrium for a quite a while with sources and sinks of around 220 Gtc/year (again, to use your numbers), but we humans have added another source (yes, a relatively small addition) now at 8 GtC/year, with the sinks responding to the increasing levels but only increasing by 3-4 GtC/year? This model may or not be correct, but NOTHING you have argued is in any way a disproof of this model.
Keep in mind that the sinks are responding to LEVELS (partial pressure, as John pointed out) in the atmosphere; they “know” nothing directly about the rates of sources.
A couple more analogies. Say I have a business that for a long time has just been breaking even, with $220K in income but also $220K in expenses each year. I add a new product line that brings in a new $8K of income each year but adds $5K in costs. As a result, my bank account increases by $3K each year. Is this “accumulation model” of money incorrect? Would it be horribly wrong to attribute the increase in my bank account to the new product line?
Or, let’s say that for a long time my diet and exercise patterns have been the same, and my weight has remained basically constant. I have significant caloric intake and significant metabolic burn rate, but they generally balance out so that I am neither gaining nor losing weight over the long run. Now I add a bowl of ice cream after dinner every evening, increasing my caloric intake. Lo and behold, I start to gain weight. My metabolic burn rate does increase somewhat, if only to support the increased weight, but not enough to keep me from continuing to add on the pounds. Is this caloric “accumulation model” absurd? Would it be horribly wrong to attribute the increase in my weight to my nightly bowl of ice cream?
In the case of CO2 sources, of course there are many other sources now besides anthropogenic. Let’s say for the sake of argument that insect respiration produces 10GtC per year, compared to our 8GtC/year of anthropogenic industrial emissions (I have no idea what the real number is, but it would not surprise me that it is larger). Are you seriously saying we should blame insects for the increased atmospheric CO2 levels? The two key things about (significant) anthropogenic emissions are that (1) they are quite new, and (2) we have some direct control over them. That is why we can “blame” them.
Before I go further, I need to know which Alan I am arguing with. Is it:
1.) the Alan who says that “the rate of atmospheric CO2 growth is roughly 25 times greater than the human emissions rate” (Aug 11 08:07) and that “The rate of atmospheric climb vastly exceeds the anthropogenic rate” (Aug 13 12:41)?
or
2.) the Alan who says that the rate of atmospheric CO2 growth is on average less than half (44%) of the human emissions rate?
“The CO2 sinks are limited,”
Categorically false. The CO2 sinks can GROW.
Curt.
The problem with the equilibrium idea is that we would have to be at the saturation point. All of your analogies suggest the saturation point has been maintained. If that were the case, then the oceans cooling in the 1980s would have seen a drop in the atmospheric CO2 levels. The yearly Mauna Loa data is a nice steady trend with no dips, so we cannot be at the saturation point. The fact that the sinks could respond to the increasing levels as you have noted is yet another indication that we are not at the saturation point.
Your “2.) the Alan who says that the rate of atmospheric CO2 growth is on average less than half (44%) of the human emissions rate?” shows you do not understand what Alan is saying.
The formula we are discussing is from my spreadsheet. It produced a line that is similar to Alan’s pink line.
H = E*j + R*k
H = The amount of CO2 from human sources left in the air
E = The amount of CO2 from human emissions that year
R = The amount of CO2 from human sources retained in the air from previous years
j = the retention rate for this year
k = the retention rate for retained emissions from previous years.
I started out with the j being 0.6 and the k being 1. Alan’s pink line uses this formula where the j and k are both 0.56. Steve is suggesting that the k variable should be 1. But he also agrees with Alan on some point, so perhaps Steve thinks k should be less than 1, but larger than 0.56.
As I pointed out before, one problem could be that we are dealing with averages and estimates. I don’t know where to get hard numbers for natural emissions for each year from 1966 to 2004.
John M Reynolds
“The problem with the equilibrium idea is that we would have to be at the saturation point. All of your analogies suggest the saturation point has been maintained. If that were the case, then the oceans cooling in the 1980s would have seen a drop in the atmospheric CO2 levels. The yearly Mauna Loa data is a nice steady trend with no dips, so we cannot be at the saturation point. The fact that the sinks could respond to the increasing levels as you have noted is yet another indication that we are not at the saturation point.”
No, we are not at saturation point. There is very significant fine structure to hemispheric and regional (e.g. great Southern Ocean (SO)) atmospheric CO2 levels if one calculates residuals relative to the ‘official’ NOAA global average. This also applies to Mauna Loa.
The purpose behind calculating % residuals relative to the (smoothly rising) global average is that this maximizes factoring out the net effects of (temporal) trends in anthropogenic emissions or upwelling and downwelling across the planet. Please download this example spreadsheet.
https://download.yousendit.com/Smp1T200eDNoeVpFQlE9PQ
Please also refer my earlier article in this blog of 4 June 2008.
There is clear evidence that on a regional basis the capacity of the oceans for CO2 removal is both variable and in some regions e.g. great Southern Ocean and others, is actually increasing.
In my view, this is a result of the effects on cyanobacterial primary productivity of increasing CO2 fertilization, delayed fertilization from N, sulfite, Fe and Si fallout/washout from volcanos like Pinatubo and, perhaps most importantly, the massive and rapidly increasing input to the oceans of anthropogenic fixed nitrogen.
It can also be shown that cyanobacterial primary productivity has a negative feedback effect on SST which in turn increases CO2 solubility etc.
An associate and I are preparing a paper on this matter. Unfortunately, all this work requires time consuming data treatment exercises of large ASCII data text files (associated with various zones over the world oceans) downloaded from a NASA site which has become increasingly unreliable in recent months with respect to transmission of these data files. Once downloaded the files have to be converted into Excel spreadsheets and then manipulated mathematically to transform the chlorophyll a data (the measure of cyanobacterial productivity) from the SeaWiFS satellite because there is a non-linear conversation required to render the data consistent with known in situ calibrations of chlorophyll a.
In an irony, it may well be the reduced SST effects of increasing primary productivity in the coastal shelf zones of SE Asia and the Indonesian archipelago (driven by the increasing nutrient pollution of those shallow seas) which has led to the increasing dryness of the Murray Darling Basin (Cai and Cowan).
(1) This is a two component graph showing average monthly daytime chlorophyll a over all oceans and average monthly daytime SSTs for the latitude band 0 (Equator) to 30 N (i.e. Sub-Equatorial NH). Note the 1998 El Nino SST effect. Next, please note the presence of a bimodal population of cyanobacteria in each annual cycle i.e. a Consortium S which blooms in summer and a Consortium W which blooms in winter. Note also the peak and trough SSTs. Note also the increased strength of the winter 2006 and winter 2008 Consortium W blooms. I suggest you print out this graph and the following ones if you can (in colour).
http://reason.gsfc.nasa.gov/OPS/cgi-bin/Giovanni/Giovanni_cgi.pl?west=-180&north=30&east=180&south=0&type=3%23Time+Plot+%28point+or+area+averaging%29&Product_A=0%23%23%23SeaWiFS+Chlorophyll+a+concentration&Product_B=5%23%23%23Aqua+Sea+Surface+Temperature+%2811+micron+day%29&landocean=landocean&b_year=1997&b_month=September&e_year=2008&e_month=February&end_date=2008%2F02%2F29&data_limit=126&cbar=cpre&cmin=&cmax=&tpbar=tpdyn&tpmin=&tpmax=&tpint=&asc_res=1.0&global_cfg=.%2Fglobal.cfg.pl&data_sys=mpcomp&pid=ocean&action=Generate+Plot
(2) Here is the equivalent graph for the oceanic latitude band right around the Equator i.e. 15 N – 15 S. Note again the presence of a bimodal population of cyanobacteria in each annual cycle i.e. a Consortium S which blooms in summer and a WEAKER Consortium W which blooms in winter.
http://reason.gsfc.nasa.gov/OPS/cgi-bin/Giovanni/Giovanni_cgi.pl?west=-180&north=15&east=180&south=-15&type=3%23Time+Plot+%28point+or+area+averaging%29&Product_A=0%23%23%23SeaWiFS+Chlorophyll+a+concentration&Product_B=5%23%23%23Aqua+Sea+Surface+Temperature+%2811+micron+day%29&landocean=landocean&b_year=1997&b_month=September&e_year=2008&e_month=February&end_date=2008%2F02%2F29&data_limit=126&cbar=cpre&cmin=&cmax=&tpbar=tpdyn&tpmin=&tpmax=&tpint=&asc_res=1.0&global_cfg=.%2Fglobal.cfg.pl&data_sys=mpcomp&pid=ocean&action=Generate+Plot
(3) Here is the equivalent graph for the latitude band below the Equator i.e. 0 – 30 S. Note the almost complete absence of the 1998 El Nino SST effect. Note also the almost complete absence of a bimodal population of cyanobacteria in each annual cycle i.e. Consortium W dominates completely (unlike the situation with the Sub-Equatorial NH.
http://reason.gsfc.nasa.gov/OPS/cgi-bin/Giovanni/Giovanni_cgi.pl?west=-180&north=0&east=180&south=-30&type=3%23Time+Plot+%28point+or+area+averaging%29&Product_A=0%23%23%23SeaWiFS+Chlorophyll+a+concentration&Product_B=5%23%23%23Aqua+Sea+Surface+Temperature+%2811+micron+day%29&landocean=landocean&b_year=1997&b_month=September&e_year=2008&e_month=February&end_date=2008%2F02%2F29&data_limit=126&cbar=cpre&cmin=&cmax=&tpbar=tpdyn&tpmin=&tpmax=&tpint=&asc_res=1.0&global_cfg=.%2Fglobal.cfg.pl&data_sys=mpcomp&pid=ocean&action=Generate+Plot
(4) Now here is the equivalent plot for the mid-NH latitudes 30 N – 60 N. Note the almost complete absence of the 1998 El Nino SST effect! Note well the now marked and very consistent presence of Consortium S and a shift of the (now stronger)Consortium W to warmer waters later in each year, relative to more equatorial waters. Note also how Consortium S has INCREASED in activity from a peak Chlorophyll a level of less than 0.6 mg/m^3 in 1997 to approx. 0.7 mg/m^3 in 2006 -7.
http://reason.gsfc.nasa.gov/OPS/cgi-bin/Giovanni/Giovanni_cgi.pl?west=-180&north=60&east=180&south=30&type=3%23Time+Plot+%28point+or+area+averaging%29&Product_A=0%23%23%23SeaWiFS+Chlorophyll+a+concentration&Product_B=5%23%23%23Aqua+Sea+Surface+Temperature+%2811+micron+day%29&landocean=landocean&b_year=1997&b_month=September&e_year=2008&e_month=February&end_date=2008%2F02%2F29&data_limit=126&cbar=cpre&cmin=&cmax=&tpbar=tpdyn&tpmin=&tpmax=&tpint=&asc_res=1.0&global_cfg=.%2Fglobal.cfg.pl&data_sys=mpcomp&pid=ocean&action=Generate+Plot
(5) This graph is the killer of the set! Here is the equivalent SH plot for the mid-SH latitudes 30 S – 60 S. Note the still-evident 1998 El Nino SST effect! Note the COMPLETE ABSENCE OF Consortium S UNLIKE THE EQUIVALENT NH ZONE 30 N – 60N but an equivalent shift of the (now solitary) Consortium W to warmer waters later in each year (relative to more equatorial waters).
http://reason.gsfc.nasa.gov/OPS/cgi-bin/Giovanni/Giovanni_cgi.pl?west=-180&north=-30&east=180&south=-60&type=3%23Time+Plot+%28point+or+area+averaging%29&Product_A=0%23%23%23SeaWiFS+Chlorophyll+a+concentration&Product_B=5%23%23%23Aqua+Sea+Surface+Temperature+%2811+micron+day%29&landocean=landocean&b_year=1997&b_month=September&e_year=2008&e_month=February&end_date=2008%2F02%2F29&data_limit=126&cbar=cpre&cmin=&cmax=&tpbar=tpdyn&tpmin=&tpmax=&tpint=&asc_res=1.0&global_cfg=.%2Fglobal.cfg.pl&data_sys=mpcomp&pid=ocean&action=Generate+Plot
These graphs, if you have the patience to let them load into your Web browser, to view them and (as I suggest) print out copies for more careful perusal, should be sufficent to convince you that the behaviour of the vast crops of oceanic cyanobacteria in the NH oceans (‘Consortia S and W), the Equatorial is markedly different to the SH below 30 S (which has only a ‘Consortium W’).
My interpretation is that the NH populations of mixed oceanic cyanobacteria are clearly responding to the more rapidly increasing NH atmospheric CO2 levels, the higher SSTs and the larger anthropogenic fixed nitrogen pollution of the NH by adaptation to establish a stronger ‘Consortium S’ population designed to consume those elevated CO2 and fixed nitrogen nutrient levels.
As I noted in my previous post, the increasing negative deviations of CO2 levels over the great Southern Ocean from the global mean CO2 level (the ‘residuals’) suggest that this CO2 fertilization effect is occurring there too. We simply can’t discern it in the NH in the above manner because the NH is where the atmospheric CO2 is being overwhelmingly generated.
This is clearly evolution in action. It is evolution in the direction of increasing adaptation-to and attentuation-of elevated atmospheric CO2 (from whatever source) and increasing SSTs (for whatever reason).
Another ‘negative feedback’ effect!
John, you say, “The problem with the equilibrium idea is that we would have to be at the saturation point. All of your analogies suggest the saturation point has been maintained.”
Huh? None of my models were in equilibrium or saturation. All had continually rising levels: water height, bank balance, body weight. Nothing was saturated.
Then you say, “The fact that the sinks could respond to the increasing levels as you have noted is yet another indication that we are not at the saturation point.” Correct. What on earth led you believe that I was arguing equilibrium or saturation? As with Alan, I have no idea which John I am arguing with, because your arguments are mutually contradictory.
Every one of your analogies involved equilibrium. The business was breaking even. Your caloric intake and significant metabolic burn rate were generally balanced. The pump and hole system was in rough equilibrium. That is what led me to believe that you were arguing equilibrium or saturation.
As you pointed out, analogies are useful for explaining, but are not useful as proof. We are now past the point where analogies are useful. Steve has offered biology as an increasingly negative feedback as a response to increased CO2 and nitrogen levels. His cyclical graphs would explain why, when the average is 56%, the yearly actual retention percent could vary. It also suggests why over time the atmospheric CO2 retention percent could decrease; however, it still does not yetaddress Alan’s main point about residency being 10 years or less all along.
John M Reynolds
What I see in the graph 1 is that El Nino years allow less chlorophyll than La Nina years. It also shows me that the 2007 summer bloom was muted for some reason.
For graph 2, I see the southern influence on the lower magnitude winter blooms. The average slope as best as I can eyeball it seems flatter in graph 2.
Graph 3 has a large difference in both Y axis scales. Seeing as how their summer is around January, they have next to no summer bloom. I see no large El Nino nor La Nina influence in either the chlorophyll nor SST record.
Graph 4 is odd to me. The only El Nino and La Nina influences I see are in the magnitude of the peaks, but look at the scales. Subtracting the bottom values of 0.4 from the top values of 1.1, I get a range of 0.7 milligrams per cubic meter. The 30S to 0 graph has a range of only about 0.07. The Chlorophyll scale has about 10 times the range in the northern mid latitudes! As well, with the shift, it seems to me that the winter blooms are now a strong spring and a slight fall bloom instead of summer and winter.
Graph 5 to me shows only consortium S. I say that because I though the S denoted summer. The peaks are happening near the new year when it is summer in the south. They too are shifted, but to the left this time. Or maybe, they are winter blooms shifted to spring blooms which would be similar to the shifted winter blooms in the mid northern latitudes. How can I tell? The Chlorophyll peaks are happening in the spring as the SST are rising but before the SST peaks in February.
I am going to have to think about these graphs some more; although, I wonder why they are not showing any 2008 data yet.
John M Reynolds
John:
I freely admit the ‘labels’ Consortium S and Consortium W are fairly arbitrary.
I simply said let’s call Consortium S the bloom closest to the middle of the year in the NH and closest to the end of the year in the SH and Consortium W the bloom closest to the end of the year in the NH and closest to the middle of the year in the SH. Please don’t get hung up on these arbitrary labels.
The point is that, with respect to oceanic chlorophyll a levels and hence seasonal oceanic cyanobacterial blooming:
the oceanic latitude zone 30 S – 0 is weakly bimodal;
the zone 15 S – 15 N is more strongly bimodal; and
the zone 30 N – 60 N is even more bimodal.
However the zone 30 S – 60 S is essentially unimodal.
I would urge you to also look at the equivalent bands of (say) 60 N – 75 N and 60 S – 75 S.
The implication, with respect to the relative proportions of the year in which cyanobacteria are blooming in the NH and SH oceans, are stark.
It is the climatic implications of this pattern which I find so intriguing.
John, my models started out in equilibrium (but not saturation) because the argument is about whether or not we have perturbed this equilibrium. In none of the cases after the perturbation was the system either in equilibrium or saturation.
“But with increasing temp, the gas will start coming out of the solvent.”
So the warmeners know the answer and merely kick against the goads!
The oceanic partial pressure of CO2 controls the atmospheric abundance. The ocean contains 150,000Gtons of CO2 dissolved and in carbonate form; the atmosphere 3000.
Yet the daily fluence between them is on the order of 100Gtons!
Spencer’s F-Test on the variance in Mauna Loa seasonal and long-term CO2 signals in their 13C/12C fraction shows the are of the same origin.
“We are 100% certain that the increase in CO2 is due to humans.”
Your certainty is a feeling, like the warmth in your soiled pants. It will pass.
Folks the chart only goes back to 1966, why not take it back to 1820 when the way to measure CO2 in the atmosphere was first discovered and logged at regular intervals in the libraries and botanical garden logs around the world (well northern hemisphere anyway)
Ernst George-Black did that study in 2007 and guess what? The records show that the levels in CO2 fluctuate all over the place, around 1830 it was 520ppm. then it dropped, then it went up and so forth. At the end of WW2 it was well over 400ppm. then it went down to around 290ppm, since the 60’s it’s tracking up but now slowing as we seem to be entering a cool period. at around 370ppm it’s right in the middle of averages.
It goes down around 100ppm during day time in spring near garden plants as they absorb it for food. Stomata evidence supports these readings as well. Now don’t attack me, if you must, try and attack that evidence, or work out why actual readings logged over a couple of hundred years are not as accurate as ice core data supplied by the IPCC. Interesting?