by Edwin X Berry, Ph.D., Physics
October 11, 2019: I posted the first draft of this Preprint for your comments.
June 20, 2020: Thanks to all your comments, I have replaced this Preprint #2 with my much updated Preprint #3.
I am preserving your comments and closing the discussions on this post.
CO2 is highly relevant in the higher colder (& DRIER) regions of the troposphere. It is here that a significant proportion of LWIR is finally emitted to space. Because of the lower temperatures, the rate of emission is reduced (S-B Law). This disturbs the energy equlibrium at the Top of the Atmosphere (outgoing less than incoming). The surface & lower atmosphere must, therefore, warm until balance is restored.
Increased CO2 is warming the planet – not catastrophically perhaps – bit it’s happening.
Without CO2 there would be less Water Vapour.
That is the perfectly correct argument. It doesn’t come from god, as somebody said. It’s pure reason.
John F
Then why is there no response in atmospheric concentration to changes in rates of fossil fuel emissions? I believe the scenario of equilibrium you postulate for your explanation is not valid and the small part of emissions that is human is lost in the widely variable, unmeasured natural flux. Watch Salby’s videos (all referenced here on Dr. Ed’s site) to get a good feel for the limiting factors and calculations of limits involved.
“However, as the years pass, the human proportion in the atmosphere will increase and eventually reach just under 4% – or the same as the proportion of the annual emissions – at which point the proportion (not the amount) will remain fairly constant.”
If this is correct and all fossil fuel emissions were magically stopped is it reasonable to conclude that the growth rate in the atmosphere will go to zero? That would assume that the 96 % natural emissions are constant enough that the 4% human emissions is the only controlling factor in the concentration growth and as such is the only cause of the increase and would necessarily have to show correlation in the growth rate of the concentration. Look at the no growth period of human emissions from 2011 to 2016 (https://edberry.com/blog/climate/climate-physics/what-is-really-behind-the-increase-in-atmospheric-co2/ at 42:20 min.) and note that there was no change in the growth rate of concentration in the atmosphere. Can you describe a natural mechanism that decided to not continue increasing natural sinks so the concentration growth was unaffected by this plateau in the emissions? I can’t.
The Two-page summary is well worth the look, as it presents a new and simple way to show that CO2 is not the prime driver of Climate Change.
http://www.thelightfootinstitute.ca/documents/A%20new%20look%20at%20current%20climate%20science%20Two%20page%20summary%20Sept%2014%202019.pdf
Anyone with a cellphone can cross-check the data collection aspects of this research.
” Then why is there no response in atmospheric concentration to changes in rates of fossil fuel emissions? ”
There is a response. What makes you think there isn’t? I’m using a simple example to show how the proportion of the human contribution in the atmosphere will tend towards the proportion of human emissions. If human emissions increased to 5% then the atmospheric contribution of human emissions would increase (over time) until they reached 5%.
There’s no mystery to this – it’s simple statistics.
Regarding Murray Salby’s ‘opinions’, as I recall Salby correlates the derivative (rate of change) of atmospheric CO2 with temperature. So what? He’s simply showing that concentration grows faster when it’s warmer. We know this. This, however, does not address the underlying trend. Year to year temperature changes cause CO2 increases to vary by +/- 1 ppm. This cannot explain the 130 ppm increase since 1850.
John Finn,
Please state your evidence and/or reasoning for your assertion.
Richard
I’m not sure what your point is. There doesn’t need to be growth of emissions to produce growth in the atmosphere. The growth is the atmosphere comes from the fact that not all annual emissions can be removed from the atmosphere.
Year 1
Start of Yr balance = 500
IN = 100+4 = 104
OUT = 100
End of Yr Balance = 504
Year 2
Start of Yr balance = 504
IN = 100+4 = 104
OUT = 100
End of Yr Balance = 508
… and so on. No change in emissions but an increase in atmospheric concentration.
The 96% and 4% are not fixed values. They increase as the concentration increases.
If human emissions stopped atmospheric CO2 would be subject to natural decay and would decline over time. As a guess I’d estimate half the EXCESS (~65 ppm) might disappear after about 40 or 50 years but I’d need to take a closer look before being in any way confident about that figure.
Sorry Prof Simon I thought god was smarter 🙂 Apologies if my comment looked disrespectful beyond my intention.
Prof Finn I still can’t understand the “cap” provided by the human inflow concentration (let’s say 4% in your example). I think this is more or less the same question as DMA.
John Finn:
You should do your homework before issuing a torrent of weakly supported opinions. Had you done so, as suggested by DMA, then you would have seen that Professor Salby and Dr. Ed show that the human component of increased CO2 has to be small even without reliance on temperature.
Dr. Aegerter: You stated that the implausibility was based on “What we observe in the atmosphere is that part that goes neither in ocean nor in plants”. I wonder if an unaccounted for source of naturally produced CO2 is missing here. Isotopes in the Earth’s core decay following their half life cycles. This produces a variable heat that adds extra heat to the oceans. A warming Ocean releases additional CO2 which, as John Finn describes is small but does continuously accumulate.
Are we missing here the geothermal heat produced by isotope decaying? Such a heat will likely release unaccounted CO2 from the oceans to the atmosphere. As John Finn showed it will accumulate and show a difference for non anthropogenic CO2.
In your post above you state:
“While the proportion of human CO2 is small, fossil fuel burning is responsible for almost all of the excess since 1850.” Harde’s analysis concludes “The anthropogenic contribution to the actual CO2 concentration
is found to be 4.3%, its fraction to the CO2 increase over the Industrial Era is 15%”. Berry’s analysis concludes: “The ratio conclusion means human CO2 adds only about 18 ppm and natural CO2 adds about 392 ppm to today’s CO2 level of 410 ppm.”
I guess I am saying I think their derivation convinces me and yours seems weekly anchored in assumptions I have reason to question.
It occurred to me that my understanding would rewrite the equation you show above:
IN = 100+4 = 104
OUT = 100
to be:
IN = 100(+- 20)+4 = 104(+-20)
OUT = 100(+- 20)
In my equation the resultant figure at the end is uncertain enough that the increase shouldn’t be blamed on the 4 that are not thermally induced.
The argument for all/most of the increase in CO2 being man made strikes me as similar to the Police taking someone to court and saying, “Well if he didn’t do it, then who did” ?? Whilst the argument is obviously stupid in this example, in the form of the climate debate it has gained far more credibility than it deserves.
There is a wealth of information coming in through these comments. It is also apparent to me that this audience is highly intelligent and almost unanimously rejects the ‘religion’ of the alarmists.
If only our politicians (especially here in Australia) had the sense and the intelligence to really immerse themselves in the subject and then go about sensible decision-making for the future good of this country.
Similarly, other countries need to follow the reasoning and reject the ‘Chicken Little’ brigade and its doomsday predictions.
Unfortunately, however, there appears to be so much money invested in the UN and the IPCC that there are significant forces working hard against true sanity!
Keep up the good work Dr.Ed.
Dear John
one question – does your model replicate the 14CO2 data (above ground atomic bomb tests) described in Dr.Ed’s preprint ? I still cannot figure this out.
Thanks
Massimo
Who to trust in the climate debate? One minute it is volcanoes and fires that are major CO2 sources, but who can see CO2. Best explanation Dr Willy Soon, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zrejG-WI3U who explained this very well.
And who decided that the base line should be after an ice period? Chemically CO2 dissolves better in cold water than warm and if temperature arisen then water will be realized. Check out cold coke versus warm coke.
And climate models, have they ever given the correct measurements? 415 ppm equals 0,04% amongst approx. 78% N2 and 21% O2 ++. How log spacing between each CO2 molecule that can adsorb desorb beams (agree that it can in a 100% filled tube, but comparing to clouds where you can see a lot of them when you have heat in northern part of the earth and the other way along equator when it rains there gets colder.
Then you have all the activities from sun, rotation of the earth and so forth- but still the believers say it is almost certain this is a human created disaster due to CO2 emission. Well a religion it is and therefor even though I do not understand all the arguments in Eds model to be more thrust worthy than the Swiss very unclear criticism.
If you can not prove something so many can understand and claim models gives the truth then we are back to how good are they to predict weather or in the oil industry do the models find the oil. No rubbish in = rubbish out.
Would not outflow be proportional to concentration?
Ocean concentration does not change, but atmospheric does.
Like this:
Year 1
Start of Yr balance = 500
Average Yr 1 = 501.8
IN = 100+4 = 104
OUT = 100*(501.8/500) = 100.4
End of Yr Balance = 503.6
Year 2
Start of Yr balance = 503.6
Average Yr 2 =505.1
IN = 100+4 = 104
OUT = 100*(505.1/500)=101
End of Yr Balance = 506.6
… and so on. No change in emissions but an increase in atmospheric concentration up to a point where an equilibrium is reached with the almost infinitely large ocean. The inflow would not remain constant at 100, it would be proportional to the CO2 concentration in the ocean, but that change is negligible in the short time scale and there is not enough fossil carbon on earth to ever change it much.
Rate of change of CO2 is proportional to the sea surface temperature (https://edberry.com/blog/climate/climate-physics/what-is-really-behind-the-increase-in-atmospheric-co2/ at 31:30 min.) 8 ppm/year/kelvin for inter-annual variation according to this site: https://climategrog.wordpress.com/d2dt2_co2_ddt_sst-2/
That number 8 ppm/year/kelvin with a time constant of about 15 years as given by 14C data would give something like 13 ppm after 50 years for a single sudden temperature rise of 0.11 degrees. A constantly increasing temperature of 0.11 degrees per decade for 50 years (the change rate we see in satellite data) would give about 50 ppm outgassing from the oceans with the 8 ppm/year/kelvin and a time constant of about 15 years. The temperature rise, 0.2 degrees before 1970 should have caused an outgassing of about 25 ppm. The rest, 410-280-50-25 = 55 ppm should be the anthropogenic contribution to todays atmospheric CO2. All the above is under the assumption that CO2 would not have any heating effect at all.
If we instead would accept the IPCC standpoint that all the heating is caused by CO2, then, of course, the contribution from outgassing would be caused by humans and all the increase, 230 ppm would be anthropogenic. With that assumption the IPCC projections for future temperatures would be realistic…
Ed:
I do not understand Figure 5, IPCC Natural carbon cycle flows. The flow into and out of each sink is the same. This means the sizes of the sinks cannot change.
How were the sizes of the sinks established in the first place? I suspect the sizes of the sinks have changed over time. If so, then the flows into and out of the sinks must be different.
H. Douglas Lightfoot
Dear Doug,
These are IPCC numbers. IPCC’s reports describe how they got their levels and flows. I assume these are the most accurate levels available to us at this time
The net flows are zero or near zero. This means the levels are near their equilibrium levels. Small differences in the flows will, of course, change the levels over time.
IPCC’s referenced papers must have used a model something like the Physics model to calculate their flows from their levels because the Physics model “right out of the box” calculates flows that are not too different from the IPCC flows.
This close approximation also means the Physics model explains the IPCC data for natural carbon. This means IPCC’s data for the natural carbon cycle supports the Physics model. IPCC does not present any alternative to the Physics model. This means the Physics model is the “only game in town” for calculating carbon cycles.
Dear Raymond,
To follow up on your note about Soon’s video, you can read my summary of Soon’s paper here. It shows why the sun and not CO2 drives the earth’s climate.
While the level or concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is relevant to our discussion, the percentage of CO2 compared to N2 and O2 is irrelevant. The calculations of all models, so far as I know, do not care about how much N2 or O2 is in the atmosphere except when they do radiation calculations.
My Physics model is much different than a climate model. My Physics model has only one hypothesis (outflow = level / e-time). By contrast, climate models have a multitude of interconnected hypotheses and arbitrary parameters for curve fitting.
The Physics model can replicate the decay of 14C from 1970 to 2014, and it replicates the IPCC natural carbon cycle within the error bounds of the IPCC numbers. IPCC has no such model.
Independently of the Physics model, I show that the IPCC human carbon cycle contains such gross errors that it must be rejected. That leaves the IPCC without a valid human carbon cycle…. which means there is no scientific basis for the so-called climate crisis.
Only then, do I use the Physics model to calculate the human carbon cycle. I simply apply the e-times found for IPCC’s natural carbon cycle to the human carbon cycle. That is how the IPCC should have calculated the human carbon cycle.
Overall, if you don’t let the required math in this preprint stop you, this preprint is really very simple. Far simpler, I might add, than the many papers that support the IPCC invalid claims about the human carbon cycle.
Even as a non-climatologist I find the hypothesis of Dr. Berry (the minimal contribution of anthropogenic emission to the post-industrial rise of CO2) not surprising, based on the following considerations.
Abbreviations:
t = time
V = Volume of the atmosphere
T = elimination half life of CO2 in the atmosphere
ke = ln2/T (the FRACTION (not the amount) of CO2 that is removed from the atmosphere per unit of time)
ki = the rate of inflow of CO2 into the atmosphere
Ct = concentration of CO2 at time t
Css = concentration at steady state
Suppose there is no CO2 in the atmosphere at t=0; then natural emission starts and also the elimination. The concentration of CO2 will increase (if ke<1).
The concentration of CO2 in function of time is given by:
Ct = ki/Vke . (1 – e^-ket) (1)
CO2 concentrations do not increase infinitely, but a steady state is reached (after 7xT, about 99% of the steady state is reached). At steady state the equation can be simplified (t=>infinity) :
Css = ki/Vke (2)
This situation is comparable to the pre-industrial period: CO2 concentrations rather constant (280 ppm), an equilibrium between natural emission and natural elimination.
Then anthropogenic emission adds CO2 to the natural emission (let us say 5% of the yearly natural emission). The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will increase and after again 7xT a new steady state is reached. According to equation 2, ki increases with a factor 1,05 and consequently also Css (if ke remains constant).
Conclusion : if ke remains constant, the anthropogenic emissions cannot explain the increase from 280 to 410 ppm.
Even when ke decreases by a factor 2, the anthropogenic contribution remains small.
The foregoing calculations are based on principles used in pharmacokinetics, which studies the fate of a drug in the body.
https://pharmacy.ufl.edu/files/2013/01/5127-28-equations.pdf
This approach may seem an oversimplification, but it has been tested many times (which cannot be done in climatology) by observations. The two situations are comparable: the distribution and elimination of a drug is very complicated (different compartments in which the drug is distributed, all with different distribution rate constants and different organs that eliminate the drug).
With the foregoing in mind I have also difficulties to accept statements like ‘ half of the yearly anthropogenic CO2 emission is eliminated from the atmosphere and half cumulates in it’ .
Interesting. However someone here says Soon & Connery have cherry picked the satellite measurements 🙁https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php?a=18&p=24)….
It’s really hard for a non-expert to discern.
On Dr.Ed’s preprint, it seems to me that no one has so far raised any solid argument against. Presumed formulations of the carbon cycle suggested by John and endorsed by Prof Aergerter do not stand (in my very humble opinion).
I agree fully with DR Ed’s preprint. However, I do feel that the whole question really revolves around whether or not the small amount of CO2 in the atmostphere has any measurable effect on climate. So far, I have seen nothing to make me thing it has, and I have been studying climate for the last 40 years.
1. Oceans are becoming more acidic (less alkaline). The opposite would be the case if the atmospheric CO2 increase was due to “outgassing” from oceans.
2. The correlation between ice core data & temperature changes show a 10 to 16 ppm increase per degree C.
Dear John,
It is not that simple:
1. The oceans become equally less alkaline if the CO2 is created in the ocean when carbon becomes CO2.
2. Ice core data do not reveal the full effect of temperature on CO2 because ice cores underestimate CO2 concentration. Harde presents additional information on how temperature changes CO2.
LEIF ÅSBRINKJANUARY 9, 2020 AT 9:39 AM
My example is simply intended to show that the atmospheric concentration will grow even if the emissions don’t grow. I am not modelling the exact process.
PHILIP JANUARY 8, 2020 AT 4:02 PM
Philip No-one has shown any such thing. The proportion of human produced CO2 at any time is only about 4% because that is the proportion of total CO2 emitted. That does not mean the accumulated excess is not due to fossil fuel burning by humans.
It’s quite simple. Humans produce about 9 GtC per year. The atmospheric concentration increases by about 5 GtC per year.
1ppm = 2.12 GtC
Ed
Let’s make this even more simple.
Humans produce about 9 GtC of carbon each year.
The atmospheric concentration increases by 5 GtC each year (1 ppm = 2.12 GtC).
Nature doesn’t differentiate between human CO2 & natural CO2. There isn’t a new separate ‘sink’ which sequesters all the human (fossil fuel) CO2.
Dear John,j
All your points are correct. So, what is your conclusion from your points?
Thanks for the reply and informative arguments. I will study your paper, but so far we are agreeing but I am only in the start phase of digging into this based on all the so-called facts coming from IPPC that in my mind do not ad up. When also an environmentalist like Patrick Moore is onto it the maybe some of those org might turn. This presentation was quite good, https://youtu.be/UWahKIG4BE4
Anyway, hopefully time and your excellent work will turn this CO2 religion, but so far at least in Europa the madness increases every year! Have a nice weekend
Dr. Ed has boundless tolerance…
Dear Andre,
Your equations derived from pharmacology are the same as my equations for the Physics model. We only need to relate your terms to my terms to see that they are the same:
t = time
V = Volume of the atmosphere
T = elimination half-life of CO2 in the atmosphere = Th
ke = ln2/T = 1/Te
Let V = 1, then
Ki = Inflow
Ct = Level = L
Css = Balance Level = Lb
Your “Suppose there is no CO2 in the atmosphere at t=0” is my
Lo = 0
Your (ke < 1) is the same as my (Te > 1).
Your (Ki / Vke) is the same as my (Inflow * Te) = Balance Level = Lb
Your concentration of CO2 as a function of time is:
Ct = (ki/Vke)(1 – exp(-ket) (1)
This is the same as my equation (8) when Lo = 0:
L(t) = Lb (1 – exp(– t/Te) (8)
When t goes to infinity, then (8) becomes
L(infinity) = (1 – 1) = 0
Otherwise, when Lb is not zero
L(infinity) = Lb
You say your equations have “been tested many times (which cannot be done in climatology) by observations.”
Your equations show the Physics model is supported by pharmacology. I did write that the Physics model is the same as used in many engineering applications.
So, I wonder why so many physicists cannot understand the Physics model. I studied engineering as an undergraduate at Caltech. We used equations like this many times. But maybe those who study only physics never learn to use models like the Physics and pharmacology models.
Dear Raymond,
Although Patrick Moore and I agree that more CO2 is beneficial to humanity, Patrick and I disagree on one major point:
Patrick Moore claims, like the IPCC, that human carbon emissions are the sole cause of the increase of atmospheric CO2 above 280 ppm.
Whereas, I believe I have proved the IPCC claim makes serious errors, and human emissions have caused no more than 31 ppm of the rise above 280 ppm, and nature has caused the other 100 ppm rise.
” All your points are correct. So, what is your conclusion from your points? ”
Ed
My conclusion is that without human contribution there would be no accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere.
This is in the same way that there would be NO change in my bank account balance if I deposited £500 every week and spent £500 every week. However if my bank account received £10 per week from an additional source (e.g. interest) my balance would increase – even though the extra £10 is only a small fraction of the £500.
The correlation coefficient between cumulative CO2 emissions and atmospheric CO2 since 1900 is 0.999. It’s possible this is simply coincidence , after all, correlations doesn’t necessarily mean causation, but since ice core data suggest CO2 levels varied less than +/- 10 ppm for several thousand years before 1850, you’re going to need to provide a much more convincing argument than the one above to convince anyone that fossil fuel burning is not an issue.
Dear John,
Your analogy must assume the weekly outflow from your bank account is proportional to the amount in your account. For example, if your outflow = Level / Te and Te = 2.
Then your inflow of L500 will produce a balance level of L1000, and the L1000 will cause outflow to equal L500. Your account will stay at L1000 so long as your L500 inflow continues.
Then your additional weekly inflow of L10 will have the same Te and produce a level of L20, to make your account level L1020.
Your analogy shows that each inflow is independent. The effect of each inflow can be calculated independently and the sum of the results is the same as the total result.
Suppose you were to measure the level of your bank account and your new inflow of L10 but you found your bank account level increased to L1080, not L1020. This means the total inflow must equal L540. But you know your smaller inflow is only L10. Therefore, your larger inflow must have increased to L530.
That is how the Physics model computes the relative effects of human and natural inflows. It finds IPCC’s Te for natural levels and flows. Then it applies the same Te to human inflows. The known human inflow with this Te adds only 31 ppm to the CO2 level. Therefore, natural inflow had to to add 100 ppm to the level.
John
You might find the post at : https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/12/14/climateaction/
interesting as is looks at the computation problems in the production of the correlation between cumulative CO2 and temperature and concludes “We conclude from these results that no empirical evidence exists to support the rationale for costly climate action that assumes a causal relationship between the rate of emissions and the rate of warming. The evidence does not show that reducing emissions will lower the rate of warming.” Also: https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/12/19/co2responsiveness/
that concludes: “We conclude that atmospheric composition specifically in relation to the CO2 concentration is not responsive to the rate of fossil fuel emissions. This finding is a serious weakness in the theory of anthropogenic global warming by way of rising atmospheric CO2 attributed to the use of fossil fuels in the industrial economy; and of the “Climate Action proposition of the UN that reducing fossil fuel emissions will moderate the rate of warming by slowing the rise of atmospheric CO2. The finding also establishes that the climate action project of creating a Climate Neutral Economies, that is Economies that have no impact on atmospheric CO2, is unnecessary because the global economy is already Climate Neutral. Because climate research subsumes human cause other sources of CO2, both geological and from the oceans are missed or minimized in importance.”
https://edberry.com/blog/climate/climate-physics/human-co2-has-little-effect-on-the-carbon-cycle/?
Hello Dr Ed Berry,
Thank you for your latest paper. I have been pondering this subject for ~12 years and am still doing so. I wonder if the following close relationship of dCO2/dt vs Temperature from my 2008 paper is helpful to your hypothesis. Please consider and advise.
In my January 2008 paper, the close correlation of the velocity dCO2/dt and delta Temperature proves that atmospheric CO2 changes lag atmospheric temperature by ~9 months in the modern data record, and this observation suggests Climate Sensitivity to Atmospheric CO2 must be very small, and may not even exist in measureable reality.
This plot approximates the dCO2/dt vs T correlation. Major volcanoes El Chichon (1982) and Pinatubo (1991+) disrupt the relationship.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/uah6/from:1979/scale:0.22/offset:0.14
Best personal regards, Allan MacRae
Carbon Dioxide Is Not The Primary Cause Of Global Warming, The Future Can Not Cause The Past
By Allan M.R. MacRae, January 2008
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
Excel: http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRaeFig5b.xls
[excerpt]
The IPCC’s position that increased CO2 is the primary cause of global warming is not supported by the temperature data. In fact, strong evidence exists that disproves the IPCC’s scientific position. This UPDATED paper and Excel spreadsheet show that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration lag (occur after) variations in Earth’s Surface Temperature by ~9 months. The IPCC states that increasing atmospheric CO2 is the primary cause of global warming – in effect, the IPCC states that the future is causing the past. The IPCC’s core scientific conclusion is illogical and false.
There is strong correlation among three parameters: Surface Temperature (“ST”), Lower Troposphere Temperature (“LT”) and the rate of change with time of atmospheric CO2 (“dCO2/dt”). For the time period of this analysis, variations in ST lead (occur before) variations in both LT and dCO2/dt, by ~1 month. The integral of dCO2/dt is the atmospheric concentration of CO2 (“CO2”).
___________________________________
CO2, Global Warming, Climate and Energy
by Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., June 15, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/15/co2-global-warming-climate-and-energy-2/
Excel: https://wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Rev_CO2-Global-Warming-Climate-and-Energy-June2019-FINAL.xlsx
[excerpt]
Global warming alarmism, which falsely assumes that increasing atmospheric CO2 causes catastrophic global warming, is disproved – essentially, it assumes that the future is causing the past. In reality, atmospheric CO2 changes lag global temperature changes at all measured time scales.
Nino34 Area Sea Surface Temperature changes, then tropical humidity changes, then atmospheric temperature changes, then CO2 changes.
The velocity dCO2/dt changes ~contemporaneously with global temperature changes and CO2 changes occur ~9 months later (MacRae 2008).
The process that causes the ~9-month average lag of CO2 changes after temperature changes is hypothesized and supported by observations.
The ~9-month lag, +/- several months, averages 1/4 of the full-period duration of the variable global temperature cycle, which averages ~3 years.
Based on the above observations, global temperatures drive atmospheric CO2 concentrations much more than CO2 drives temperature.
Let’s put it this way :
What Dr Ed demonstrates can be hold in one line : Since the human share of the input is 4%, then the human share of the stock is necessarily also 4%, whatever the output.
But, if (for unknown reasons) the output is limited and cannot increase, then, the stock will increase, due to the human supplementary input.
And then, in this case, even if the human share of the stock remains 4%, the responsibility of the stock increase is actually human.
In reality, everything looks as if the supplementary output was limited to 50% of the supplementary (human) input : current human CO2 input represents 4 ppm/year while the stock increases by 2 ppm/year : not human, but from human responsibility.
Jacques,
Does that make sense? So the supplementary output was limited to 50% in 1750? In 1800? In 1850? In 1900? In 1950? and in 2000? What law of physics is this?
Stephen,
It is only maths, I recognize ; and not a proof (and I confirm “unknown reasons”).
(BTW, there was no supplementary input (thus also output), when the concentration was stable (i.e. before man massively used fossil fuels), let’s say around 1950. But it’s just a correlation, not a proof, and, indeed, not a physical explanation either)
But, anyway, I currently have no physical explanation regarding the current atmospheric increase in CO2. And I would be happy to have one.
Alan,
The correlation between d[CO2]/dt and T (temperature anomaly) can be written :
d[CO2]/dt = aT + b
aT explains the local variations (puffs) in the CO2 curve (due to CO2 desorptions/absorption from the ocean with varying temperature (anomaly)), but do you have an explanation for b (the heavy tendancy) ?
You have a perfect explanation from Berry. One that makes total sense and complies with all the laws of physics.
Also, to rephrase as you did what Berry is saying, “man might be causing the warming” but it ain’t because of carbon dioxide. Temperature is causing carbon dioxide, not the other way around. Murry Salby says man isn’t even causing the warming. He’s saying it’s random.
Hello Jacques-Marie. You wrote in part:
“In reality, everything looks as if the supplementary output was limited to 50% of the supplementary (human) input : current human CO2 input represents 4 ppm/year while the stock increases by 2 ppm/year : not human, but from human responsibility.”
This is called the “mass balance argument” and it has been ably debated on blogs for about a decade by Ferdinand Engelbeen and Richard S Courtney. While I remain agnostic, I also recognize that highly intelligent people are persuaded by Salby, Berry and Harde. Your debate is with them.
Part of the reason I have not spent much time on this important scientific question is because I do not need it to falsify the CAGW and the “Wilder Weather” hypotheses. My recent paper does so ~25 times, but as Albert Einstein famously stated “One would be enough”.
“The Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) and The Humanmade Climate Change Crises Are Proved False”
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc.(Eng.), M.Eng., January 10, 2020
https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/the-catastrophic-anthropogenic-global-warming-cagw-and-the-humanmade-climate-change-crises-are-proved-false.docx
Regards, Allan
Thanks Allan,
You mechanical engineers understand thermodynamics and heat transfer better than anyone.
Hello Jacques-Marie. You wrote:
“The correlation between d[CO2]/dt and T (temperature anomaly) can be written :
d[CO2]/dt = aT + b
aT explains the local variations (puffs) in the CO2 curve (due to CO2 desorptions/absorption from the ocean with varying temperature (anomaly)), but do you have an explanation for b (the heavy tendency)?”
As I stated elsewhere on this page, I am agnostic on your question because I have not studied it in detail – and that is because it is conclusive based on observations that climate sensitivity to increasing atmospheric CO2 is far too low to cause catastrophic global warming or dangerous climate change – both those scary hypotheses have been falsified numerous ways.
Berry stated in this paper:
“Human emissions through 2019 have added only 31 ppm to atmospheric CO2 while nature has added 100 ppm.”
Sounds about right to me – humankind’s contribution to atm. CO2 is not zero, neither is it significant nor harmful – it fact it is highly beneficial. Atm. CO2 is too low for optimal plant and crop growth, and far too low for the continued survival of carbon-based life on this planet – see my 2020Jan10 paper..
Note also that the changes in atm. CO2 are not just due to solution/exsolution of CO2 from seawater – there is also a huge biological component.
Regards, Allan
Note: Annualized Mauna Loa dCO2/dt “went negative” a few times in the past (calculating dCO2/dt from monthly data, by taking CO2MonthX (year n+1) minus CO2MonthX (year n) to minimize the seasonal CO2 “sawtooth”.)
All these events occurred during the global cooling period that occurred from ~1940 to 1977. Note that fossil fuel combustion strongly accelerated starting circa 1940, at the beginning of WW2. This observation is one of many that falsifies the CAGW hypo.
These 12-month periods when CO2 decreased are (Year and Month ending in):
1959-8
1963-9
1964-5
1965-1
1965-5
1965-6
1971-4
1974-6
1974-8
1974-9
Data Source (2008 version of):
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt
Thank you Stephen for your kind words.
For clarity, my degrees are in Mining Engineering (Queens U) and a Masters in Geotechnical Engineering (U of Alberta), plus a few years of Biology at McGill. Mining is probably the most general of engineering degrees, and we did take some good courses in thermodynamics. We also studied geology which includes paleoclimatology.
My interest in the CAGW hypothesis started in ~1985 and I was highly skeptical from the start, based on my understanding of the prehistorical and historical climate records. I studied CAGW and climate for 17 years and wrote my first papers starting in 2002. The following two statements were published by my co-authors and me in 2002 and are clearly correct-to-date:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
In contrast, all the CAGW alarmists’ scary climate predictions have failed to materialize. The global warming/climate change alarmists have a perfectly negative predictive track record, and thus perfectly negative credibility.
Also in 2002, I published a prediction of global cooling starting by 2020-2030, modified about five years ago to “starting about 2020 or sooner”, primarily driven by low solar activity, not CO2 – and that prediction is now materializing. I’d prefer to be wrong, because humanity suffers during cold periods, but the early signs point to a cooling world, and it may have already started.
Dear Allan,
Thank you for your comments.
In my opinion, you have done an excellent job of showing how temperature drives CO2 concentration. Your 2008 paper predates Salby’s video presentations where he also shows how the rate of change of CO2 is a function of temperature.
By the way, it appears that you and Salby used different mathematical approaches to show the same result. If you would like to explain how your approach differs from Salby’s, you are welcome to do so.
You wrote, “I wonder if the following close relationship of dCO2/dt vs Temperature from my 2008 paper is helpful to your hypothesis. Please consider and advise.”
I think our papers together help form a consistent argument. My paper shows that human emissions are, at most, an insignificant contributor to the increase atmospheric CO2 based on carbon cycle calculations. Your paper shows that temperature change is the dominant cause of changes in atmospheric CO2.
Here is the Physics model equation (2):
Outflow = Level / Te (2)
Applied to the surface ocean, (2) says outflow will increase when Te decreases, which it will do if the surface temperature increases, according to Henry’s law. This Outflow becomes Inflow into the atmosphere. Here is the Physics model equation (1):
dL/dt = Inflow – Outflow (1)
The shows how the rate of change of CO2 is a function of the Inflow, which is a function of temperature. So, the physics model supports your paper and your paper supports the Physics model.
When Inflow increases, it sets a higher balance level. Then the level will move toward the new balance level. If the balance level oscillates, the level will also oscillate as it follows the balance level.
My carbon cycle calculations show there are two ways that temperature increase can increase atmospheric CO2. The fast response way is likely Henry’s law which lowers the Te of the surface ocean and sends more CO2 into the atmosphere.
The slow response way is the release of stored carbon into the carbon cycle. I calculate human carbon has added about one percent to the carbon in the carbon cycle. But nature has added about 3 percent since, say, 1750, likely due to the warming out of the Little Ice Age.
Thank you for your reply Ed. This is very interesting and enjoyable!
A simplified version of my analysis is approximated by this formula from woodfortrees:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/uah6/from:1979/scale:0.22/offset:0.14
A more detailed description is included in the spreadsheets attached to the two papers (2008 and 2019) referenced in my first post today at 6:14am:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRaeFig5b.xls
https://wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Rev_CO2-Global-Warming-Climate-and-Energy-June2019-FINAL.xlsx
It is late here – I’ll try to revisit this question in more detail tomorrow.
I don’t know how my friend Murry Salby did his analysis.
Hi again Ed,
This explains the December 2007 genesis of my dCO2/dt vs. Temperature close relationship.
I did my original work “longhand” in Excel, but using woodfortrees is easier to explain.
Start with the Keeling Curve at Mauna Loa (the Global average CO2 curve works just as well)
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979
Smooth out the “seasonal sawtooth” by one of several methods – I used a different method in 2007-8 as I recall, but no matter.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12
Take the derivative of the smoothed curve
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative
At this point I saw a familiar curve with the 1998 El Nino spike, and soon added the global temperature curve, using UAH5.6 at that time – here I use UAH 6.0 and scaled and offset it vertically to fit.
Voila! Imagine my surprise!
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/uah6/from:1979/scale:0.22/offset:0.14
I wrote the paper and it was published in January 2008 on Joe D’Aleo’s icecap.us. I revised it to prove a point and it was re-published in February 2008.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
Excel: http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRaeFig5b.xls
Best, Allan
Thanks Allan,
one questions : doesnt it look like in the very recent years the two curves seem to diverge (uha6 pointing upward while c02 derivative going down) – at a closer look there seem to be a few anomalies.
max
Ed,
Have you worked through the analysis that illustrates the Revelle factor? Would seem difficult to make strong claims about the carbon cycle if you haven’t.
Hi Max,
Yes, I noticed this divergence some time ago and wrote John Christy about it recently. He usually responds quickly, but has not yet replied to this email.
Regards, Allan
From: Allan MacRae
Sent: January-04-20 12:17 AM
To: John Christy
Subject: . The close relationship seems to break down starting about 2017..
Hi John and Happy New Year. I think we corresponded on this subject a few years ago.
I wrote in January 2008 that the close correlation of the velocity dCO2/dt and delta temperature proves that atmospheric CO2 changes lag temperature changes by ~9 months in the modern data record.
Observing the most recent data in this dCO2/dt vs UAHLT plot raises an interesting question:
1. The close relationship holds quite well except for periods of major volcanic activity, such as El Chichon 1982 and Pinatubo 1991+.
2. The close relationship seems to break down starting about 2017, where temperature spikes above dCO2/dt twice; also note that dCO2/dt is now declining, typical of cooling, even as temperature increases. I have studied this data back to 1958 and never seen this pattern before. [I do suspect we are seeing early sporadic signs of a new cooling trend.]
There could be a few explanations for this change in a consistent multi-decadal pattern – do you have any suggestions as to what is happening?
Thank you for your thoughts, Allan MacRae
_____________________________
From: Allan MacRae
Sent: January-05-20 10:02 AM
To: John Christy
Subject: RE: . The close relationship seems to break down starting about 2017…
OK John – maybe this explains the divergence of dCO2/dt from UAHLT noted in my earlier email below:
The warming is happening at the North and South Poles NoPol and SoPol and also in the SoExt area from 90S-20S and that is causing the global average temperature to increase.
Cooling IS occurring in the Tropics area Trpcs and that is where the “temperature changes drive atm.CO2 changes ~9-month later” happens.
The probable mechanism is described here:
CO2, GLOBAL WARMING, CLIMATE AND ENERGY
by Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., June 15, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/15/co2-global-warming-climate-and-energy-2/
Excel: https://wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Rev_CO2-Global-Warming-Climate-and-Energy-June2019-FINAL.xlsx
Your thoughts?
Best, Allan
He doesn’t have to work out the Revelle Factor. Do you see the Revelle Factor in any of the equations?
No, hence my question. It’s quite a key factor that illustrates why there is a limit to how much of our emissions can be taken up by the ocean. Would seem important to either demonstrate that this has been taken into account, or (if Ed thinks it isn’t important) why it doesn’t need to be taken into account.
Dear “then there’s physics”,
In section 2.1, I wrote:
“The only way external processes can change a reservoir’s level is by changing the reservoir’s inflow, outflow, or e-time. Therefore, the Physics model INCLUDES ALL EFFECTS OF EXTERNAL PROCESSES (chemical, biological, etc.) on the level of carbon in a reservoir.”
Ed,
I think this is wrong. The carbonate chemistry of seawater suggests that there is a limit to how much CO2 can be dissolved in the oceans. If you haven’t considered this, then it seems likely that your analysis is missing an important process.
Dear “then there’s physics”,
Every hypothesis must be anchored to data. The IPCC natural carbon cycle data is the best data we have. My Preprint merely finds the e-times for the IPCC carbon cycle data.
Therefore, IPCC’s data and my e-times for the IPCC data include the effects of the Revelle factor.
Ed,
If you’re using the bomb test data, then you’re almost certainly confusing residence time and adjustment time. It’s well known that that individual molecules will only spend a few years in the atmosphere before cycling into one of the other sinks. This doesn’t mean that an enhancement in atmospheric CO2 will decay on the same timescale.
Dear “then there’s physics”,
If you want to learn physics, let me be your teacher.
First, “IPCC natural carbon cycle” data means the data from reference [1] in this preprint. Carbon cycle data are NOT the 14C data from the bomb tests.
Second, please read my first preprint that you can find by clicking “ALL” in the menu above and selected the second preprint.
Its section 4.2 explains why the claim you refer to as “It is well known” may be the most incorrect popular illusion in the subject of climate science. The so-called difference between residence time and adjustment time is a result of very poor physics.
The idea that the “exchange of molecules” properly describes the way a level approaches its balance level is very poor physics. It is such a poor idea that it may cause brain damage to those who try to “understand” it.
Just use the Physics model. Its e-time describes how a level approaches its balance level with no need to change the definition of e-time during the approach.
If you can’t get this point correct, then you will never understand atmospheric physics.
Ed,
Can I clarify what you’re implying in section 4.2? Are you simply suggesting that only 14.7% of the CO2 molecules that we’ve emitted remain in the atmosphere today?
Why don’t you ask him if he’s taken into account all the seaweed in the ocean?
Dear “then there’s physics”,
Section 4.2 of THIS post shows the calculation of the human carbon cycle. Yes, it shows only 14.7 percent of human carbon emissions remain in the atmosphere at the end of 2019.
But in my previous comment, I referred to Section 4.2 of my previous preprint, not this preprint. That is where I explain about the different time constants.
Ed,
Maybe you can point me to your previous pre-print. I can’t seem to find it.
Dear “then there’s physics”,
Here is the link to Preprint #1:
https://edberry.com/blog/climate/climate-physics/contradictions-to-ipccs-climate-change-theory/
You can also find it by clicking “All” in the menu above.
Ed,
Well, it seems to me that you are confusing residence and adjustment times (or assuming they’re the same, which they aren’t) and aren’t taking into account the Revelle factor which does limit how much of our emissions can be taken up by the ocean.
Remember that the C14 was introduced by the bomb tests. This means that when a C14 is taken up by one of the natural sinks, it isn’t necessarily replaced by another C14 molecule. Hence, using the decay of C14 might reasonably represent the residence time of a molecule, but it doesn’t properly represent the adjustment timescale of an enhancement, which has to be longer than the residence time of a molecule.
Dear “then there’s physics”,
How can you think I confuse residence time and adjustment time when I quote IPCC’s definitions of each, and summarize as follows?
And then I show in Figure 11 how these IPCC definitions are irrational. It is nonsense to apply two different time constants to different parts of a curve, especially when e-time covers the whole process. Your continued use of residence and adjustment times to attempt to explain the physics is not physics.
I have already addressed your Revelle claim and you have made to attempt to disprove my argument.
Then you argue:
I submit that your argument above is so far outside of physics that it is irrational. To do real physics, simply use the Physics model. It not only explains the physics, it exactly replicates the 14C data from 1970 to 2014 using only one e-time.
The explanation you propose does not explain the physics. It is so complex that it loses by Occam’s Razor. It is so complex that you cannot even explain it. And it cannot replicate the 14C data. I think it is time you dumped the ideas you are proposing.
@then there’s physics:
“the decay of C14 might reasonably represent the residence time of a molecule, but it doesn’t properly represent the adjustment timescale of an enhancement, which has to be longer than the residence time of a molecule.“
This is a claim pushed by the IPCC to argue that human emission is what’s causing CO2 to increase. In addition to Dr. Ed’s response that it’s irrational, Professor Salby shows that the claim is a joke. See:
https://edberry.com/blog/climate-physics/agw-hypothesis/what-is-really-behind-the-increase-in-atmospheric-co2/ at times 58:00 to 1:08:00
After all, the only way that CO2 in the atmosphere can adjust to an enhancement is thru its removal by absorption at the earth’s surface. That’s the same process that determines how long CO2 resides in the atmosphere.
Some comments on Simon Aegerter’s note from January 7:
What we can learn from the paper of Gruber et al. is: Despite the increasing anthropogenic emissions over the period 1972 to 2012 apparently the oceans absorb the same relative amount of extra CO2 from the atmosphere as over the period from pre-industrial times to 1972, which was 31%. Gruber’s global ocean sink estimate is consistent with the expectation of the ocean uptake having increased in proportion to the rise in atmospheric CO2, which is in full agreement with a first order absorption process (or here called physics model), and which is a clear indication that the oceans and also the whole biosphere by no means show any saturation in the uptake of CO2. This is also a clear indication that the Revelle factor is of no relevance.
Only surprising is that Gruber et al. believe to have measured the pure human caused carbon changes. So, they claim that with an extended multiple linear regression approach they can separate anthropogenic carbon changes from any natural CO2-driven change in dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC). Apparently they can distinguish between molecules coming from a volcanic eruption, from permafrost, outgazing oceans or soil due to global warming and on the other hand between molecules from fossil fuels or land use change. To my knowledge no isotope selective measurements were evaluated and cannot be used to differentiate between the different sources, and no one is measuring fluxes from one reservoir to the other. All studies are based on concentration measurements from ships or buoys in different depths, and the main data they employed are coming from measurements of DIC, total alkalinity and related parameters.
Better would have been to measure the temperatures and partial pressures of the oceans in different depths. From such data reliable information about the solubility and exchange fluxes between the oceans and the atmosphere under conditions of increasing temperatures could have been derived. Actual studies of Cheng et al. (https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs00376-020-9283-7.pdf) in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, February 2020, support the further warming of the oceans, from which the Southern Ocean with about 40% has taken up most of the global warming heat since 1970.
Unfortunately Cheng et al. try to explain their calculated increase of the ocean heat content only by greenhouse gases and forget the Sun with a modern Grand solar maximum during solar cycles 19–23 (1950–2009) (see Usoskin et al.: https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/2014/02/aa23391-14.pdf or Soon et al.: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0012825215300349).
Aegerter’s comment also contains the question, if the environment acting as a net sink at the same time can be responsible for a higher CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. This question has already been discussed in Ed’s previous paper and also in my Earth Sciences paper (ES-paper: http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/paperinfo?journalid=161&doi=10.11648/j.earth.20190803.13, Subsection 5.3).
It can simply be answered by looking at the balance equation, the conservation law. With anthropogenic emissions the atmospheric concentration increases, and thus, the uptake by extraneous reservoirs rises. At the same time the flux from the adjacent reservoirs to the atmosphere may increase, e.g., caused by an inclining solar irradiance or by internal oscillations, which change the total balance. Particularly temperature variations, independent from concentration changes, significantly affect this balance. This is discussed in Subsection 5.6 of the ES-paper, not only affecting the temperature induced native emissions, but also reducing the solubility of CO2 in oceans and the uptake by the biosphere.
The seasonal variations on the Mauna Loa curve reveal the strong solar and thermal influence on the atmospheric CO2 concentration.
– These oscillations, in amplitude and shape, are in good approximation independent of the absorption (or residence) time, but are almost exclusively molded by the seasonal emissions.
– On the other hand is the average CO2 concentration at a given total emission rate almost only determined by the absorption time.
From the first item it follows that the additional seasonal emissions from August till April have to be 27 ppm/yr to reproduce the modulation amplitude on the Mauna Loa curve, this in a regular rhythm already over millions of years. These seasonal emissions are part of the total native emissions, which in AR5 were specified as about 93 ppm/yr.
Comparison only of these seasonal emissions of 27 ppm/yr together with the actual anthropogenic emissions of 5.3 ppm/yr (fossil fuel and land use change) already shows a 5 times larger natural emission, and as average over the last 270 yr this is even 24 times larger than all human contributions. The seasonal emissions could not have cumulated over this period, also not with an airborne fraction of 50% as assumed by IPCC models. Then we would already experience a CO2 concentration of 4 ‰ (27.4×270/2+280 ppm) and together with the human emissions 4.13 ‰. These seasonal emissions demonstrate the strong solar and thermal influence on the observed CO2 concentration, and they explain, why also in pre-industrial times this concentration could never have been constant.
From the second item we can conclude that the true absorption time cannot be larger than 11 yr. So, without any additional natural emissions – only the seasonal emissions of 27 ppm/yr and the anthropogenic emissions of 5.3 ppm/yr – the observed CO2 concentration of 400 ppm can only be reproduced for an ‘apparent’ absorption time of 12 yr, and with a further correction due to global warming this reduces to 11 yr.
This analysis of the Mauna Loa measurements allows a second, independent approach, in full agreement with the 14C-decay observations, to hedge the true absorption time to be shorter than 11 yr. And when the estimated natural emission rates as presented in AR5, Fig. 6.1, which by the way are not better known than ± 20%, are not completely unrealistic, the true absorption time can only be 3 to 4 yr (see Earth Sciences paper, Section 4: http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/journal/paperinfo?journalid=161&doi=10.11648/j.earth.20190803.13).
By the way: A larger decay time for the 14C than for 12C or 13C isotopes cannot be explained by a faster absorption of lighter molecules. Such fractionation correction is in the per mil regime (‰) and makes no difference in the absorption process. But after an uptake a CO2 molecule can be re-emitted from the surface layer of the ocean or by decomposition of plants. While for 12C and 13C isotopes a direct re-emission is indistinguishable from all other molecules of a reservoir, which may be released after hundred or thousand years, 14C is identified by its radioactivity. The re-emission of the 14CO2 isotopologues is proportional to their concentration in the upper layer, and this concentration passes off with a decay time determined by the sequestration time or dilution and mixture process with the other molecules in the reservoir. This represents the apparent absorption time, while the true absorption time can only be shorter. For details see Subsection 5.7.3 and Appendix B of the ES-paper.
Regularly for the analysis of the 14C-decay smoothed and fractionation corrected data are used, yielding e-times between 15 and 16.5 yr, depending on the authors. When directly using the original un-smoothed data, which still show clear seasonal oscillations on the decay, the same apparent absorption time of 11 yr as derived from the Mauna Loa curve can be found. So, an absorption time smaller than 11 yr is confirmed by two independent methods.
Concerning the observation of a higher CO2 concentrations in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere the reader may look to Subsection 5.7.4. of the ES-paper and also remember that warmer water stores less CO2 than colder. So, one °C warmer water already reduces its solubility by about 85 mg/l.
Ed,
Maybe I can ask you a question here. Let’s consider a scenario where we add a particular isotope of carbon into the atmosphere that isn’t present in the other reservoirs (ocean and biosphere). We then observe the decay of this isotope in the atmosphere and use this to estimate the decay timescale. Does this represent the residence time, the adjustment time, or both?
Dear “then there’s physics”,
Thank you for your question.
As you know, the Physics model allows individual calculation of all definitions of carbon. That is why we calculated the carbon cycles for natural carbon and human carbon independently. So, we will treat your hypothesized carbon isotope independently from all other carbon.
Section 4.4 shows the result of your scenario. Figure 12 plots how your carbon isotope in the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide would decrease with time. This calculation uses the e-times found to best represent IPCC’s natural carbon cycle.
Notice that the curve for the decrease does not go to zero because the total carbon added remains in the reservoirs. The curve goes to the level where the carbon in all the reservoirs is in equilibrium. Figure 13 represents how the carbon, initially all in the atmosphere, moves to the other reservoirs with time.
You desire to use the Physics model decay curve of Figure 12 to estimate the decay timescale.
Although each reservoir in the carbon cycle follows the Physics model equation (2) with constant e-times, the final result for the decay of atmospheric carbon begins with a shorter e-time and ends with a larger e-time. That is because of two things.
First, the carbon cycle model is a complex, interactive model. As the land and reservoirs begin to fill, they send carbon back to the atmosphere. And the surface ocean is the pathway to the deep ocean.
Second, the scenario begins with all reservoirs but the atmosphere empty. This is not a realistic scenario. That is why the decay is very fast for about the first 5 to 10 years and then slows as the other reservoirs approach their equilibrium levels. For example, the 14C data curve shows the e-time when the deviation from its balance level is less than two times its balance level. This would be somewhere after 30 years in Figure 12.
Back to your question. We get nowhere if we attempt to explain pulse decay by trying to fit the decay curve with a formula or explain it with imprecise definitions. We get nowhere if we try to explain the time factor during the first 10 years as an “adjustment time” and then, somewhere after 10 to 30 years, change to call it a “residence time.” Doing so avoids using physics to explain what is happening.
Hi Alan,
I do not need it to falsify CAGW either : I completely agree with you on this point.
My concern is just curiosity : even if it is useless regarding CAGW, what explains the current CO2 concentration increase ? Where does this extra CO2 come from ? Why and how ?
I confirm that I agree with you : especially when you write :
“Scientists including Salby, Berry and Harde have hypothesized that the increase in atmospheric CO2 from the alleged “pre-industrial” concentration of ~250ppm to more than 400 ppm is largely natural and not mostly humanmade. I have considered this question for ~12 years, and am still agnostic on the conclusion, so I have not included it in my above falsifications of the CAGW hypothesis. Regardless of the cause, the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 is hugely beneficial to humanity and the environment.”
I have also considered this question for years and I have no explanation either.
Dear Allan ,
My Preprint #1 discusses the “mass balance argument ” in its section 4.1. It concludes this argument fails because it assumes natural CO2 emissions have stayed constant since 1750.
It also concludes IPCC’s “net carbon sink” argument fails because this argument assumes outflow is a function of inflow, which is untrue.
Keep up the excellent work and maybe this paper will ad some more information https://watervaporandwarming.blogspot.com/2019/11/abstract-during-time-periodwhen-water.html?fbclid=IwAR08x9jb5YQB79AgyQmh2JYWPFSk7IJ2k0vto-2xUmUdgLXj-yuFetkrNcM
Nice weekend
Corrected a typo – new url:
THE CATASTROPHIC ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING (CAGW) AND THE HUMANMADE CLIMATE CHANGE CRISES ARE PROVED FALSE
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc.(Eng.), M.Eng., January 10, 2020
https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/the-catastrophic-anthropogenic-global-warming-cagw-and-the-humanmade-climate-change-crises-are-proved-false.pdf
Hi Ed,
There are a few details we should discuss offline.
You can contact me through my email address, which is included in my Contact to you send days ago.
Best, Allan
Dr Ed one question : according to the physics model, humans have added 32 ppm while nature has added 100 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. But the 100 ppm added by nature from land / oceans due to the temperature increase, may again come partly from human CO2 molecules that are already stored in such reservoirs. The “worst case” (unrealistic) would be to consider that the 100 ppm come only from land/surface ocean “evaporation” (sort of) where humans “share” of CO2 is around 7%. In such case shouldn’t we add 0.07*100 =7 ppm on top of the 32 ?
I would have to disagree David. Whether CO2 causes climate change is an important point that has not been proven. However if it can be proven that usage of fossil fuels does not cause significant CO2 increase then the role of CO2 in climate change becomes moot. If anthropogenic CO2 is an insignificant contributor to overall CO2 increase then we cannot control the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. If we cannot control the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere then we cannot control Climate Change. This is regardless of whether CO2 actually causes Climate Change. Therefore all the angst about our use of fossil fuels is unwarranted.
Why would the outflow stay constant if the atmospheric concentration was increasing. The outflow should also increase. That’s the first flaw in your argument. If human and natural inputs of CO2 remain constant then atmospheric CO2 will reach a new equilibrium level. It would not keep increasing as you suggest. Otherwise any increase in natural CO2 input would have the same effect, increasing CO2 levels.
That’s not exactly how it works. Outflow is increasing simultaneously as inflow is increasing. Inflow sets the balance level and e time sets the outflow (e time is a function of the size of the hole). Outflow is proportional to level not the balance level.
Nice Job Dr Berry. I have read your revised Preprint #2. While the first comment of the reviewers seems very difficult to be supported, I expect that they will make a strong battle on the second one (e-time constant, and relatively short, is something Bern model advocates do not digest). I have seen that you intend to expand on this topic, and I think this is good. Any other reviewers comments (good or bad…) ?
Dear Massimo,
The Physics model allows independent calculations of the natural and human carbon cycles. Therefore, the 32 ppm is the total contribution of human carbon to the atmosphere. This includes all the recycling of human carbon between the reservoirs.
Also, human carbon emissions through 2019 have added about one percent to the total carbon in the carbon cycle. Meanwhile, nature has added about 3 percent to the carbon in the carbon cycle because of the carbon release due to warming since the Little Ice Age.
Worst bushfire in Australia in terms of area of land burnt was 1974/75. Very severe bushfires occurred in 1851 & 1939. This predates large increases in CO2 levels. Intensity and severity of bushfires are dependent of fuel loads present. White settlement disrupted Aboriginal practices of frequent burning of the land to reduce undergrowth (and fuel loads) resulting in devastating fires. Current “Green” philosophy of protecting nature and locking up natural areas of bushland to be untouched has again resulted in dramatic increases in fuel loads and hence more devastating fires. 2019 was also a year of very low rainfall. Blaming Australia’s bushfires on Climate Change is Alarmist nonsense. CO2 fertilisation in all probability has little to do with the problem. Lack of responsible land and forestry management is the major cause for devastating bushfires in Australia
Of course Allan you are familiar that Salby shows that CO2 lags temperature on both short and long time scales?
Yes Stephen – and Murry Salby is my friend.
But I wrote my relevant paper in January 2008.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
That was 3+ years before Salby’s first presentation – I think to the Sydney Institute in August 2011.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrI03ts–9I&feature=youtu.be
Salby, Berry and Harde have developed the hypo that increasing atmospheric CO2 is not primarily humanmade, but is natural. That is a rational outcome of the observed lag of CO2 after temperature.
I have written that increasing CO2 is partly humanmade and partly natural but have not attempted to quantify the components as these fine gentlemen have done. I struggled with the data provided by Ernst Beck and still feel that he was badly treated by those who just KNEW that CO2 was the primary driver of temperature – pseudo-religious nonsense in my opinion (“imo”).
I have pondered this important scientific question since early 2008 and am still agnostic – I can’t seem to find the time to study it properly.
One reason is because I don’t need it to falsify the CAGW hypothesis – because climate sensitivity to increasing atmospheric CO2 is so low that there can be NO catastrophic global warming, regardless of increasing atmospheric CO2. The upper bound of climate sensitivity to CO2 is ~1C/(2xCO2), but the real number is probably near-zero or even non-existent, imo.
Regards, Allan
Allan, not asking you to be indiscreet but is Salby still living in Australia or has he moved back to the states? Unbelievable what academia has done to him.
Dear Stephen,
Information I have indicates Salby is now living in Reno, Nevada.
Ed,
I pointed out several issues with your analysis on this site some months ago, but I always had an uneasy feeling about the C14 plots, not only in your paper but also in Harde’s. They seemed to verify your argument that carbon put into the atmosphere by whatever process would exponentially disappear into one of the sinks, with a time constant of about 15 years, and would then stay put. On Sunday I dug out Turnbull, your reference 34, and tried to figure put what “delta14C”, the vertical axis on the key plots, means. Neither you nor Turnbull nor Harde define it, but Harde’s analysis explicitly make clear that he takes it as the excess concentration of C14 from bomb tests, over and above that produced by cosmic rays, and your comments indicate that is your interpretation as well. That interpretation is wrong. A little research shows that isotope specialists use it as a measure of the deviation of the C14/C12 isotope ratio from a standard value
delta14C(per mil)=1000{[(C14/C12)(measured)]/[(C14/C12)(standard)]-1}
[sorry I can’t use subscripts and superscripts here to make this formula more readable]
As this quantity approaches zero, as it appears to be doing, it means that the isotope ratio is approaching the old, standard value that preceded the bomb testing. But that does NOT mean the C14 concentration in the atmosphere is returning to its old, pre-bomb-testing value, as you and Harde both erroneously conclude. You must multiply the isotope ratio by the quantity in the denominator to get the quantity of C14. Since total carbon in the atmosphere is up about 30% since 1950, then the quantity of C14 is also up by about 30% from its 1950 value. The bomb tests raised the quantity about 60%. We must conclude that as much as half of the bomb C14 is still in the atmosphere. If you worked out the true time dependence of the C14 concentration using the correct definition of “delta14C”, and the Mauna Loa data, you would get a curve at least roughly similar to, and maybe identical to, the Bern model that you disparage.
Of course the CO2 increase in the atmosphere is the result of human activity.
Dave Andrews
Dave
See page 142 of Harde 2019 for a chart of the measured data on reduction of C14 perturbation vs Bern model. It does not purport to be a plot of C14 percent in the atmosphere. If C14 is approaching the prepurturbation level I would conclude that the C14 in the atmosphere now is nearly all natural. Sure, more CO2 means more C14 but not that the extra above the early ratio is left from the bomb.
Simple calculations using data from Hitran show that the increase of water vapor has been about 10 times more effective than the increase of CO2 at ground level warming.
Measured water vapor trend has been increasing faster than possible from feedback. https://watervaporandwarming.blogspot.com
DMA
Harde’s (and Berry’s) misinterpretation of the C14 data led them to believe that carbon in the atmosphere is absorbed by the land and sea sinks with a time constant of ~15 years and held there indefinitely. This honest error was the basis of their wrong conclusion that human produced CO2 is similarly sequestered in the land and sea sinks indefinitely, and that the absorption could be described by a simple one-time-constant process.
All C14 originates in the atmosphere, whether from cosmic ray interactions with nitrogen, or from atmospheric nuclear testing. Indeed it does flow back and forth between the atmosphere and the land and sea sinks, like carbon in the atmosphere from other sources. But when “delta C14” is correctly interpreted as the C14/C12 ratio, and not as the amount of C14, accounting for the amount of C14 in the atmosphere cannot be done with the sort of simple one time constant models that Harde and Berry make. If you want to argue that the measured increase in atmospheric C14 from 1950 to the present, is from oceanic outgassing or something, when you know that that C14 was in the atmosphere in the past ~6000 years (the C14 lifetime) then how can you avoid concluding that carbon which humans produce is similarly not safely gone forever?
Dear Dave,
You make a good point. Indeed, ratios do not “flow”. Only quantities flow. The only way to resolve how 14C flows through the reservoirs may be with a 14C carbon cycle model.
Until that happens, we have an approximation of how 14C would move out of the atmosphere in Figures 12 and 17. Both represent how a pulse of 12C would flow out of the atmosphere according to this carbon cycle model that uses IPCC data to calculate e-times. And, we can see that neither Figure shows a constant e-time. The e-time appears to increase as the level approaches its balance level. That is the effect of carbon recycling back into the atmosphere. As you note, my previous paper does not account for this recycling.
So, to make further progress on this subject, I think we need data on other sources of 14C inflows into the atmosphere. Something, so far unexplained, is happening that has caused the 14C ratio to decay with a constant e-time. Maybe it is the fact, as you noted, that this is a ratio and not a level.
Thank you for your comment.
Ed,
I too have been puzzled that the C14/C12 ratio appears to be approaching its pre-bomb-test value. If you put in values for the total C14 from bomb testing (1.3t per Wikipedia) and the total (C14 free) fossil fuel carbon emissions since 1950 (I estimate 660 Gt from various sources), you get a C14/C12 ratio for the “new “ carbon put in circulation since 1950 that is about 2x the 1950 value. Yet the observed ratio came almost all the way back to its original value. The resolution seems to be that atmospheric carbon is less than 2% of the total carbon in circulation between land, sea and air. So as new and old (pre1950) carbon get mixed, the old carbon dominates, and the isotope ratio in the atmosphere eventually changes very little. Exactly what dynamic or balance sets the CO2 level in the atmosphere, after all the important question, remains unclear to me. But I am certain that the system is too complex to be modeled by single time constant flows. And the injection of 660 Gt of carbon from human activity into the system must have something to do with the observed rise in atmospheric carbon, even though it is but a small part of the total in circulation.
I recently read a paper discussing the bomb C14 deposited in the deep ocean trenches measured in the sediments. That author stated that there is a massive biological flux of dead phytoplankton that absorbed CO2 from the ocean surface that he did not think the IPCC included in their carbon cycle estimates. I have not had time to check on his claim but assume it could be part of the decay you are concerned about.
Can’t wait for the final finished version.
Dr Ed,
Thank you for acknowledging your error in interpreting the quantity “delta C14” in your Figure 2. It represents the C14/C12 isotope ratio rather than a quantity of C14 as you had assumed. Therefore its return to its pre 1950 value, while C12 has gone up by about 30%. means that much of the C14 put into the atmosphere by bomb tests over 60 years ago remains in circulation between the atmosphere and land or sea sinks. It does NOT get permanently removed with a 15-16 year time constant. We infer from this that CO2 put into the atmosphere by fossil fuel burning similarly remains in the atmosphere for much longer than you had estimated, and that the back and forth exchange with land and sea sinks cannot be described by a model using single time constants. We can conclude that CO2 emissions from human activity are very much responsible for the increase in atmospheric CO2.
Scientists make mistakes. Hermann Harde made the same mistake you did in interpreting how the C14 data were presented by those who did the measurements. (In defense of both of you, the paper you both cited did not explicitly define “delta C14”, because evidently it was standard terminology in the carbon 14 business, which none of us are in.) But science advances because the process of science is self-correcting. When mistakes are found, wrong conclusions are retracted. Please be part of the process of advancing science by making a prominent retraction of your conclusions about human responsibility for atmospheric CO2.
Dear Dave,
Thank you very much for your contribution to this discussion. In science, we win some and we lose some. We can never win them all. In fact, we learn the most when we have to acknowledge an error.
(Hey, in my competitive sailboat racing past, I did not win every race. No one does. But, I ended up winning the US National, the North American, and the 1974 Canadian Olympic Regatta which was the effective World Championship.)
At the moment, I am tied up doing my income tax data for my accountant and I am upgrading my accounting software to Quickbooks Online. So, outside forces prevent me from immediately making a longer reply to your comment.
Here is where I think this is going. First, we have to learn more about what the 14C data that I use really represents. We will have to identify the best known or estimates of other sources of 14C inflow. Then, I plan to run a 14C carbon cycle model using the same formulation I describe in this post. I think this is a necessary step in understanding how 14C itself has changed since 1970.
In addition, while your comments on 14C are very important to this subject, the loss of fitting the 14C data does not invalidate my Physics model or my related carbon cycle model. It merely removes one check point that supported the Physics model.
The carbon cycle model I describe in this post stands on its own. It is the only carbon cycle model I know of that exactly fits the IPCC natural carbon cycle data.
Also, I now have significant updates to the derivation of this carbon cycle model that I have not had time to post. So, hang tight until I have time to provide a lot more information on this subject.
Thanks again, Ed