Green World Trust

[FerdiEgb]

[FerdiEgb]

[Lucy Skywalker]

Ferdinand,
thanks for all your hard work! Just when the discussion was getting interesting I could not get online! I'm going to deal with Quirk first.

I read through the whole thread at WUWT. This was a very interesting experience. I gleaned a lot. Ferdinand, you've been pursuing not just me but also Richard Courtney, Allan MacRae, and Tom Quirk (all around the globe for his sins, he says!). And I'm not sure that any of us feel we can disagree with you totally. It really feels like science at the cutting edge, where one gets inspired to look further. In this spirit, I did another appraisal that gathers and adds to the wisdom of other posters:

MULTIPLE SOURCES OF CO2:
(1) slow ongoing recovery from LIA - warming oceans outgassing on balance [longterm effects still working]
(2) recent warming - warming oceans outgassing on balance [overall recent picture]
(3) ocean currents reaching tropics [local picture]
(4) ongoing loss of forests - 2.5 m sq miles to 1.5 m
(5) fossil fuels burning
(6) sea ice formation @ Antarctica
(7) population
(8 ) soil in formation
(9) volcanoes
(10) extra-terrestrial sources - may sound silly but I've seen evidence that deserves to be taken seriously

MULTIPLE SINKS OF CO2:
(1) currents in polar oceans - cool ocean absorbs, huge potential
(2) cloud & rain - huge surface area 300,000 times that of the oceans (or more?)
(3) leafy biosphere - huge surface area
(4) soil in formation - huge, virtually uncatalogued
(5) ocean - phytoplankton - huge
(6) ocean - coral, shellfish & fishes in CaCO2 compounds
(7) ocean floor deposit
(8 ) sea ice loss @ Arctic Ocean # increasing NS diff of ppm

I do not know quantities here - some may be tiny, others may be important and neglected. I just looked for obvious things possibly forgotten, because I think the picture may be more complex than people usually consider.

Ferdinand, I still think you underestimate the power of the natural flux, and the possibility of a surplus at present for reasons other than, or in addition to, fossil fuel, of which temperature is just one. Forests: I read yesterday the global area is down overall, plus some say it's regrowing - I need hard data - but I suspect overall loss that could impinge the CO2 level. This suspicion is heightened by Lansner's recent evidence showing how BADLY the trees mis-measure the MWP temperature - which I and others suspect may be because there were far more forests then, so CO2 was lower - and pines in particular (remember the bristlecone pines?) are sensitive to CO2 levels

Unfortunately, I now have a huge disadvantage. I cannot read Quirk's original to see the diagrams & details. Not unless I pay subscription. Or can you help? For without all that DATA, I cannot judge adequately as to whether your criticisms are valid or not. Yet I have the funny feeling I did see more originally, that gave me confidence to say he was right. Where? Anyway, here's quoting from your comments at WUWT:

[Lucy Skywalker]

Here we go Ferdinand, let's look at Segalstad.

You must read Segalstad direct, at the very least the section in question http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/Segalstad.htm#10 In this section we find these words:

[Lucy Skywalker]

Right, now we've cleared the issues (1) what Quirk reveals or doesn't reveal (2) how Segalstad cuts through all that and gets to the heart of the matter ie the changing 13C level does NOT reveal an anthropogenic signature.

Let's have fun and look at what I think may be at work. First I want to use your own graph Ferdinand because it's very revealing if we note the growing differential between North Pole (Barrow @ 71ºN) and South Pole


because, allowing that CO2 follows temperature, this exactly mirrors what Alan Cheetham noticed http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/EarthMagneticField.htm which fits with Svensmark as well (Antarctica cooling). Steig's work proclaiming a "warming" Antarctica is, sadly, rubbish, just trying to make data fit warmists' beliefs, you can check that out with me here http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/babyIce.htm#antarctic or at Climate Audit.

[Lucy Skywalker]

Lastly, my recent observations, now we've sorted out the isotope data.
I think we've got problems with the MLO data.

I wasn't happy with the Mauna Loa graph http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_gallery/mauna_loa_record/mauna_loa_seas_adj_fossil_fuel_trend.html showing such an incredibly close fit between emissions and atmospheric CO2 rise. Finally I found the graph of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel.
http://www.earthpolicy.org/Indicators/CO2/2008_CO2 Emissions 1950-2006.GIF (you need to copy and paste this whole line up to GIF)

I measured exactly from the graph, what the tonnage of emissions was for 1964 and 2004. I've converted these figures by the approximation 2 gigatons C = 1 ppm CO2. It doesn't matter that this is approximate, as I wanted to compare 1964 and 2004. These years worked out neatly in round figures, 1.5 ppm and 4.0 ppm, near enough.



Then I returned to the Mauna Loa graph, and in Photoshop I used the "crop tool preview" to catch exactly the 10-year bands on the x-axis around 1964 and 2004, using Screen Print. I then adjusted the "crop tool preview" to show exactly where the bands cut the y-axis, to measure their width in ppm CO2. Mauna Loa states that they use a fixed fraction of 57% of all emissions. But if the graph really showed the fossil fuel trend as this fixed fraction of 57%, then each year would show a slope of 57% of that year's CDIAC record of fossil fuel emissions. But in 1964, the annual CO2 rise (the slope of the graph) is 0.8 ppm/yr; this represents 53% of that year's total CO2 emissions. And in 2004 the annual CO2 rise is similarly 1.8 ppm/yr; this represents 45% of that year's CO2 emissions.



The annual rate of fossil fuels emissions has almost trebled in this time period. This means a cumulative graph will have an end slope nearly three times as steep as the start slope. But the MLO graph does not steepen by this amount, it falls flat by an amount well in excess of any cumulative measuring errors. The cumulative emissions curve can only have been fitted to the CO2 curve by calibrating it on a sliding/logarithmic/whatever scale. This gives a false impression of fit. If the cumulative emissions is calibrated to fit the slope in 1964, it would rise steeply above the atmospheric graph in 2004; if it were calibrated to fit the slope in 2004, it would be far too high in 1964. So I cannot see that MLO's claim even fits their own graph. It seems less likely that CDIAC/BP is mistaken, since they have no agenda here.

I'd be delighted if anyone can check this, preferably with figures. But you can already see the misfit from the graphs. But as we realize from the previous 3 posts, the MLO curve cannot possibly be about an anthropogenic input anyway.

[FerdiEgb]

[FerdiEgb]

Dear Lucy,

About the difference between MLO (NH) and SPO (SH) in CO2 increase rate...

Someone else did make the same remark: the SH is more ocean than the NH and thus warms up more slowly thus there is less release of CO2 in the SH, and still the oceans are the cause of the increase...

Besides the facts that the oceans are net sinks for CO2 outside the equator and that the d13C level is too high, this reasoning doesn't fit if you look at the temperature trends of the NH and the SH.

The split trends of the NH and SH can be found at:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.B.lrg.gif
It doesn't matter that GISS is less reliable than the others, as it is about the NH-SH differences in trend in this case:



The MLO data started in 1959, the SPO in 1958. In the period up to 1975, the NH shows a cooling, the SH a warming and after 1975 both show a warming, but the NH much faster. That means that the SPO measurements should show a faster increase up to 1975 than the MLO data (the latter even no increase at all or a decrease). But there is no influence of the different temperature profiles visible in the CO2 trend: MLO leads with increasing lag for SPO. Thus temperature is not the reason of the lag:



If one compares the accumulation trends between emissions and increase in the atmosphere:



again it is clear that the source is in the NH and that human emissions are to blame...

[Lucy Skywalker]

Hi Ferdinand, dang! you floored me again. I need more time on this and I've got other things pressing now. But I'll be back to it, you know me.

(1) I haven't properly understood what you wrote about the dC13 calculations, though I've grasped the point you made about the high annual exchange masking the human input and shedding doubt on Segalstad's figure of 11. However, I need to understand this better; some of your details I did not understand; I think I want to be able to handle the PDB figures and check the calculations myself; when I understand this a bit better I'd like to go back to Segalstad to check out with him. I'm still not convinced he's totally wrong (but I need to do my homework!)

(2) We're in hot political area here. That means I need to know the bias of the authors of each relevant paper! I'd like to grasp the fractionation issue better. I seem to remember Segalstad had his doubts. It certainly seems to me that the sea HAS to release proportionally more 12C... more homework! I don't see how you can say you've proven the sea is not the source of the extra CO2 on these grounds, when it has been for so long exchanging huge quantities of CO2, annually far in excess of either our emissions or the recent increase. You say that over 10 times the amount of CO2 needs to be added by the oceans to dilute the d13C drop we are witnessing; but supposing this is upside down? supposing that the lower 13C is precisely BECAUSE the oceans are warmer and therefore even more efficient at fractionating?

(3) When you answered my points 5-8 about Segalstad, your language plus lack of actual evidence makes you sound like the warmists. With this darned climate science, more recent papers do not necessarily do better science than older papers. And Segalstad's collection of papers that show the time CO2 is in the atmosphere to be far less than IPCC want, still hold. And as for there being two different kinds of measurement of CO2 "residence", that sounds like the worst kind of wool-pulling. I need to go back to grasp those notions or non-notions as the case may be. You might be right. But so far I'm not convinced!

(4) your photos of the different temperature trends for NH, EQ and SH do not, for me prove your point: they prove mine, that the SH with the higher ocean content is a truer reflection of the steady (inertia-effect) ongoing warming of the oceans that reflects in the steady CO2 rise. Mixing time is sufficient IMO. But again, I need to look at it carefully.

(5) you haven't even considered the extraordinary fit between my two pictures: local temp anomalies worldwide, and CO2 differential rise

(6) nor have you answered the MLO record issues. Nor have you given me access to understanding the diagrams from Quirk.

However, (5) and (6) could be because enough was enough for the time being! and I need to do more homework. Ferdinand, you are hot on this case, following everyone around with your points! Do you know, therefore, who you've had dealings with, who might be most able to help me understand the d13C maths and fractionation experiments and proof? Because I've yet to be convinced that those were done without AGW bias, and though I'm also willing to be convinced, I'd like contact with anyone non-AGW who understands the isotope intricacies.

Enough for now! Cheers

[FerdiEgb]

[ian]

Wow, another interesting site...barrett & bellamy, thanks for the link Ferdinand.
best wishes, ian

[Lucy Skywalker]

More work!

Might be more delay for me

[Richard111]

Another inconvenient fact. During ice ages sea levels drop. The sea becomes more salty. The sea cannot now absorb as much CO2. Atmospheric CO2 levels rise.

So why didn't the planet warm up and melt the ice?

The high CO2 levels are there is all the geological ice data. An incontrovertable fact.

[hqmonaro]

[PAWB]