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Green World Trust
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Lucy Skywalker
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Joined: 09 May 2006
Posts: 544
Location: Somerset, UK
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 Posted: 30 Mar 2009 09:24 pm Post subject: |
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| hqmonaro wrote: | | Quote: | The CO2 flux (the flow through the air, into and out of the seas, and into and out of vegetation) is, I now tend to think, absolutely enormous, dwarfing human input, and totally under-appreciated.
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No, it's appreciated, much more than you realise. The problem is that even though carbon cycle is huge, and the capacity of the oceans to absorb CO2 is huge, every year there's still more of the stuff in the atmosphere. |
I still hold to my original statement. I've now spent five hours improving my Primer CO2 section so that you can see what I mean more clearly. 
After six solid weeks of study I was convinced what the real Climate Science said. But it takes a lot longer to communicate the evidence clearly enough. |
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Derek
Experienced User
Joined: 12 Aug 2008
Posts: 209
Location: Manchester, England.
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| Posted: 30 Mar 2009 11:03 pm Post subject: |
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If that isn't a book, I don't know what is.
It is one of the best resources on the net.
Brilliant.
A must add to anyones favourites list.
_________________
An induced feeling of guilt is not sufficient reason
to convict, or punish the human race. |
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hqmonaro
Experienced User
Joined: 29 Mar 2009
Posts: 81
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| Posted: 31 Mar 2009 12:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | And in fact if CO2 were driving temperature with a "runaway tipping point", surely the seas, containing 50 times the atmospheric CO2, would have exploded millions of years ago, since they would be one big source of fizzy water, releasing more CO2... causing more temperature rise... releasing more CO2.. |
I don't think you understand. CO2 doesn't by itself do anything. It's the interaction with the environment that's causing the warming. In the atmosphere, it's the trapping of radiation and re-emission of that radiation that creates the 'greenhouse' effect, when some of that radiation is emitted right back where it came from, towards the surface of the earth. |
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hqmonaro
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Joined: 29 Mar 2009
Posts: 81
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| Posted: 31 Mar 2009 12:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | However, I started to look at evidence afresh. I found the graph [left], standard data, showing that global temperatures have not risen in the last decade, despite steadily rising CO2 levels. |
You are looking at far too short a time period. The natural cycles are stronger in the short term than the relatively weak CO2 forcing. But the CO2 forcing is gradually getting stronger, and it is going to persist for many hundreds of years. If you look at the long term trend, it's up. |
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Lucy Skywalker
Site Admin
Joined: 09 May 2006
Posts: 544
Location: Somerset, UK
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| Posted: 31 Mar 2009 05:50 pm Post subject: |
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| hqmonaro wrote: | | Quote: | | However, I started to look at evidence afresh. I found the graph [left], standard data, showing that global temperatures have not risen in the last decade, despite steadily rising CO2 levels. |
You are looking at far too short a time period. The natural cycles are stronger in the short term than the relatively weak CO2 forcing. But the CO2 forcing is gradually getting stronger, and it is going to persist for many hundreds of years. If you look at the long term trend, it's up. |
I hate to tell you but the joke's on you. You are looking at too short a time period. Just read on a bit further! Then you might understand why I chose to use this graph which as you rightly say is too short...
Now since I last visited the Forum I've added ref. to Segalstad's work in paragraph 2. If you look at that you can see he is talking about records of all lengths, going back to the longest of all.
Now be warned dear soul. You have to look at the key science issues and suspend the general belief that they are "proven". Maybe you will realize, maybe you will not. It's not a nice place to be, the current situation. People get very het up. I was a warmist myself. I've tried to explain it in the primer but you need to read a bit further than you'd done when you wrote the post here. |
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FerdiEgb
Experienced User
Joined: 10 Aug 2008
Posts: 111
Location: Stabroek, Belgium
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| Posted: 11 Apr 2009 09:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Lucy Skywalker wrote: | Just redone the CO2 page, inspired by the piece from WUWT showing the equal distribution of carbon isotopes in the northern and southern hemispheres, unlike what CO2 rise due to our emissions predicts.
Also edited the Primer.
This is a strengthening of the evidence I need to prove what I've always believed. Ferdinand Engelbeen challenged me, and I could not answer his challenge satisfactorily earlier. Now I can. |
Dear Lucy,
The work of Tom Quirk is, to say it nicely, ignoring a lot of evidence of the opposite...
The oceans can't be the source of the decrease of 13C isotopes in the atmosphere. Any additional CO2 from the oceans will INcrease the d13C levels, while we see a DEcrease...
But more important, the method Tom Quirk used to determine the NH-SH lag doesn't see a difference between a lag (or no lag) and the same lag + a multiple of 12 months. The real lag between Mauna Loa and the south pole measurements is over 12 months:
Which proves that the source is in the NH. The lag for d13C decrease is even several years:
Which proves (as vegetation is a net sink, based on the oxygen balance) that the decrease is from human emissions and not from the oceans.
The oceans and vegetation changes (caused by temperature and humidity changes) are responsible for the variability in increase (CO2) and especially in the decrease (d13C) speed, but not for the trends themselves. |
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Lucy Skywalker
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Joined: 09 May 2006
Posts: 544
Location: Somerset, UK
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| Posted: 12 Apr 2009 04:15 pm Post subject: |
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Oh Ferdinand, how nice to see you here again... and oh dear, I'll have to look at the science yet again. It still does my head in and I still have respect for Segalstad and I respect you too!
Curious you should be here today, because I've found something I'm quite sure is a misrepresentation in the MLO data. For a while I was not happy with the incredibly close fit they had between CO2 emissions and CO2 atmospheric rise. Then I found the CDIAC/BP graph of emissions by annual rate, and I measured what that annual rate was in 1964 and in 2004. Then I measured the SLOPE on the MLO "emissions" curve which again one can do quite accurately by taking 5 years each side of the date.
It doesn't fit.
Unless someone can give me a full explanation, it looks like they have massaged the data.
My explanation is here: http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/CO2-flux.htm#MLO |
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FerdiEgb
Experienced User
Joined: 10 Aug 2008
Posts: 111
Location: Stabroek, Belgium
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| Posted: 12 Apr 2009 10:48 pm Post subject: |
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| Lucy Skywalker wrote: | Oh Ferdinand, how nice to see you here again... and oh dear, I'll have to look at the science yet again. It still does my head in and I still have respect for Segalstad and I respect you too!
Curious you should be here today, because I've found something I'm quite sure is a misrepresentation in the MLO data. For a while I was not happy with the incredibly close fit they had between CO2 emissions and CO2 atmospheric rise. Then I found the CDIAC/BP graph of emissions by annual rate, and I measured what that annual rate was in 1964 and in 2004. Then I measured the SLOPE on the MLO "emissions" curve which again one can do quite accurately by taking 5 years each side of the date.
It doesn't fit.
Unless someone can give me a full explanation, it looks like they have massaged the data.
My explanation is here: http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/CO2-flux.htm#MLO |
Dear Lucy,
The 57% trendline is simply the average increase over the full period of MLO measurements.
I have used the real measurements of MLO and the estimates of the emissions as gliding 11-years averages in the period 1964-2002 +/- 5 years. The percentage increase over 11 year periods varies between 45% and 65%.
What you see in the graphs is the year-to-year variability, caused by temperature and precipitation changes. These are huge: +/- 2 ppmv year by year, but always around the trend, which is in average 57% of the emissions. The natural variability anyway is only halve the current emissions.
For year to year changes, the average increase is 57% of the emissions +/- 25%, for 11 year average changes, that is 57% +/- 10% and the smaller the variability gets if you take longer periods...
Here I have a plot of the year by year increase of CO2 compared with the emissions, including the trendlines and what is absorbed by nature each year:
The variability is huge, but isn't increasing over time, while the net increase still is in relative constant ratio with the increasing emissions.
Further, there still is a lot to say about several items in your primer. But that is for another message... |
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Lucy Skywalker
Site Admin
Joined: 09 May 2006
Posts: 544
Location: Somerset, UK
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| Posted: 12 Apr 2009 11:20 pm Post subject: |
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| FerdiEgb wrote: | The 57% trendline is simply the average increase over the full period of MLO measurements.
I have used the real measurements of MLO and the estimates of the emissions as gliding 11-years averages in the period 1964-2002 +/- 5 years. The percentage increase over 11 year periods varies between 45% and 65%.
What you see in the graphs is the year-to-year variability, caused by temperature and precipitation changes. These are huge: +/- 2 ppmv year by year, but always around the trend, which is in average 57% of the emissions. The natural variability anyway is only halve the current emissions.
For year to year changes, the average increase is 57% of the emissions +/- 25%, for 11 year average changes, that is 57% +/- 10% and the smaller the variability gets if you take longer periods... |
Thanks for looking, and I know I have difficulty understanding, but I still am not happy. There are no "huge" variables in what I measured that could change my conclusions. I measured graphs at a far higher resolution than my final picture, and the results swing from 53% in 1964 to 45% in 2004, way off the stated 57%. Click on my pictures for the originals. Try my measurements (2nd paragraph) and see.
So I still say, what I measure does NOT yield 57% in either year or anywhere in between. It still seems that EACH YEAR's slope should be 57% of the CDIAC figures, since MLO said that was a "fixed fraction". But none of the years do, not even remotely.
I've been poring over Tom Quirk. He has fine credentials. You catch out my weak spots, excellently!   I always think I've taken in the science, but a week later I've got to work it out all over again, taking just as long or even longer. So I'm still studying.  |
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Lucy Skywalker
Site Admin
Joined: 09 May 2006
Posts: 544
Location: Somerset, UK
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| Posted: 12 Apr 2009 11:36 pm Post subject: |
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Laurence Kirk (23:12:15, 24th March) makes a very interesting point that I too suddenly saw as explaining a lot in another context. He suggests that today's rising CO2 might relate to lessening tree cover globally.
Now the recent WUWT post by Frank Lansner (brilliant IMO) made me think about just why dendro proxies are so conspicuously bad at pinpointing the Medieval Warm Period, and I had an aha! moment. Tree cover then and now. Suppose tree cover was much higher in the MWP, and suppose that meant that even with warmer conditions there was less CO2 available. Dendros would then yield far "colder" measurements for the MWP than they would today, especially pines which are highly sensitive to CO2 concentration as the Idsos show.
I think that might be it! In combination with our emissions, the lessening tree cover might be why, with global temperatures falling, we still have rising CO2. The curious thing is of course that more CO2 means that the remaining plants all benefit hugely, the Sahel has gotten a lot greener for instance. |
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FerdiEgb
Experienced User
Joined: 10 Aug 2008
Posts: 111
Location: Stabroek, Belgium
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| Posted: 13 Apr 2009 08:10 am Post subject: |
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| Lucy Skywalker wrote: | Laurence Kirk (23:12:15, 24th March) makes a very interesting point that I too suddenly saw as explaining a lot in another context. He suggests that today's rising CO2 might relate to lessening tree cover globally.
Now the recent WUWT post by Frank Lansner (brilliant IMO) made me think about just why dendro proxies are so conspicuously bad at pinpointing the Medieval Warm Period, and I had an aha! moment. Tree cover then and now. Suppose tree cover was much higher in the MWP, and suppose that meant that even with warmer conditions there was less CO2 available. Dendros would then yield far "colder" measurements for the MWP than they would today, especially pines which are highly sensitive to CO2 concentration as the Idsos show.
I think that might be it! In combination with our emissions, the lessening tree cover might be why, with global temperatures falling, we still have rising CO2. The curious thing is of course that more CO2 means that the remaining plants all benefit hugely, the Sahel has gotten a lot greener for instance. |
Again, sorry to disappoint you -again- in what you like to hear... Trees are actually CO2 sinks. At one side, humans are cutting forests, mainly in the tropics, but at the other side we are replanting forests in the mid-latitudes in North America and Europe. The balance still is negative, but that is added to the human emissions, as that is human induced.
The balance of the rest of the biosphere (land vegetation + soils + ocean vegetation) is a net sink of CO2. That is deduced from the oxygen balance: more vegetation growth than decay produces oxygen, which is what is used less than calculated from fossil fuel burning + forest destruction. The oxygen balance shows that the biosphere is a net absorber of CO2 since about 1990. See: http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf, chapter 4 for the results:
| Quote: | | According to our results, ocean uptake was 1.7 ± 0.5 (2.1 ± 0.5) GtC/yr between 1994 and 2003 (1993 and 2003), and land uptake was 0.8 ± 0.6 (1.0 ± 0.6) GtC/yr during these periods. The first number is based on data from Cape Grim, Barrow, and Samoa, while the value in parentheses is based on Cape Grim only. |
Thus both the oceans and the biosphere are net sinks for CO2 (whatever the source), and human emissions are the main source of the increase... |
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FerdiEgb
Experienced User
Joined: 10 Aug 2008
Posts: 111
Location: Stabroek, Belgium
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| Posted: 13 Apr 2009 09:12 am Post subject: |
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| Lucy Skywalker wrote: |
Thanks for looking, and I know I have difficulty understanding, but I still am not happy. There are no "huge" variables in what I measured that could change my conclusions. I measured graphs at a far higher resolution than my final picture, and the results swing from 53% in 1964 to 45% in 2004, way off the stated 57%. Click on my pictures for the originals. Try my measurements (2nd paragraph) and see.
So I still say, what I measure does NOT yield 57% in either year or anywhere in between. It still seems that EACH YEAR's slope should be 57% of the CDIAC figures, since MLO said that was a "fixed fraction". But none of the years do, not even remotely.
I've been poring over Tom Quirk. He has fine credentials. You catch out my weak spots, excellently! I always think I've taken in the science, but a week later I've got to work it out all over again, taking just as long or even longer. So I'm still studying. |
Dear Lucy,
Again, you are looking too much at the variability of the trend over too short time. The emissions over the period 1959-2006 were 247 GtC or about 117 ppmv. The measured increase was 66 ppmv, or about 56% of the emissions... And you are comparing the increase in the atmosphere to one year emissions, while you should compare the increase to the total sum of emissions in the years of interest...
The average over the full period thus is 56%, thus there are yearly and 11-year increases where the increase is (much) higher than the 56% and years where it is (much) lower... There is no reason to expect that for every year the net addition is 56%, as the net addition is the sum of what is emitted by humans and what is net emitted+absorbed by nature over the same period. The first is relatively constantly increasing, the latter is (temperature and precipitation dependent) quite variable.
The important point is not that there is so much (natural) variability around the trend, the point is that it is a variability in sink capacity and thus that nature added zero, nada, nothing net (in mass) to the atmosphere over the past 50 years.
Of course there were huge transfers during a year, both continuous (from the equator to the poles) and seasonal (mainly in NH land vegetation). But these movements did only result in increasing sink capacity over the years, no net addition by nature... |
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FerdiEgb
Experienced User
Joined: 10 Aug 2008
Posts: 111
Location: Stabroek, Belgium
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| Posted: 13 Apr 2009 10:07 am Post subject: |
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Hi Lucy,
More remarks about your primer...
| Quote: | | Many excellent studies show (see Segalstad) that CO2 only stays in the air around 5 years. No study shows a longer "life span" than 12 years. |
I don't remember how many times that I have discussed this... Last week I had a direct discussion with Fred Goldberg, who knows Segalstad very well, and will give my objections against this misinterpretation to Segalstad.
All studies about the around 5 year half life time are based on isotope studies and alike. No problem with that, and the average residence time of a molecule in the atmosphere, whatever the origin, indeed is somewhat over 5 years. That is governed by the intra year exchange rate of about 150 GtC/year over the seasons, which exchanges a lot of CO2 between the atmosphere and the oceans/biosphere. Thus the residence time is governed by the exchange rate: 150/800 per year. And Segalstad is right on this.
That has nothing to do with the excess removal rate of extra CO2 (whatever the origin) from the atmosphere. At current conditions, we see a sink rate of about 4 GtC/year. If there were zero human emissions, next year we would see that the CO2 levels in the atmosphere would sink with this amount, or about 2 ppmv. That is the result of the partial pressure difference of CO2 (pCO2) between the atmosphere and the oceans of currently about 7 microatm in average (see Feely e.a. at: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/exchange.shtml ) and something similar for vegetation alveole water.
The next year, the pressure in the atmosphere is not 385 ppmv anymore, but 383 ppmv, thus the pressure difference between atmosphere and oceans wouldn't be 7 microatm anymore, but 5 microatm. That means that the oceanic/vegetation uptake would drop from 4 GtC (2 ppmv) to 2.9 GtC (1.4 ppmv) and so on. On the other side, there is an exchange between upper oceans and deep oceans, which removes CO2 into the deep oceans, thus the drop in removal rate is less than described here for the upper oceans.
All together, the removal rate for excess CO2 (in mass) is not the 5 years half life time, but about 40 years, as that is governed by the sink capacity of the oceans and vegetation of 4/800 per year, not by the exchange rate of 150/800. And there Segalstad and many others are wrong by mixing the two very different and independent half life times together...
I will try to show that with a graph: The pre-industrial level of CO2 was about 280 ppmv (580 GtC). What happens with the total amounts and percentage human CO2 if one should add 100 GtC fossil CO2 at once and nothing after that. The difference in residence time and excess life time becomes apparent (based on realistic exchange flows):
Where FA and FL are the fraction of anthro CO2 in the atmosphere and upper oceans, FA/FL their ratio (not important here), tCA total CO2 in the atmosphere and nCA total natural CO2 in the atmosphere.
As one can see, the ratio of anthro CO2 in the atmpshere rapidely declines, as about 150 GtC/year is exchanged with more anthro-poor CO2 from oceans and vegetation. But the total amount of CO2 only slowly decreases, as the decrease rate is much smaller... Despite that the anthro fraction is small and decreases rapidely to near zero, still 100% of the excess amount of CO2 is caused by the initial emission of anthro CO2... |
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Derek
Experienced User
Joined: 12 Aug 2008
Posts: 209
Location: Manchester, England.
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| Posted: 13 Apr 2009 06:15 pm Post subject: |
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| FerdiEgb wrote: | | Again, sorry to disappoint you -again- in what you like to hear... Trees are actually CO2 sinks. At one side, humans are cutting forests, mainly in the tropics, but at the other side we are replanting forests in the mid-latitudes in North America and Europe. The balance still is negative, but that is added to the human emissions, as that is human induced. |
I thought the UN had to recently alter their position about tropical rain forest.
In actual fact satelites show there is more rain forest,
because humans have been abandoning life in the forests and moving to the cities.
The opposite of what is suggested above.
The arguements revolved around whether the forest was "virgin" or not, so supposedly effecting species counts,
but the main point was not disputed (because satelites had shown it to be the case)
there is more rain forest, because humans (net) have been abandoning the forests.
I wonder if such an obvious and large discrepancy could effect your guesstimates and plots. ?
_________________
An induced feeling of guilt is not sufficient reason
to convict, or punish the human race. |
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Richard111
Experienced User
Joined: 19 Sep 2008
Posts: 433
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| Posted: 13 Apr 2009 06:56 pm Post subject: |
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| It appears the global rise of CO2 is equal in both hemispheres yet most human produced CO2 is in the NH. What is producing the "extra" CO2 in the SH? |
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