Preprint #3: A new carbon cycle model shows human emissions cause 25% and nature 75% of the CO2 increase
My publication The Impact of human CO2 on atmospheric CO2 – edberry.com supersedes my Preprint #3 below.
The PDF viewer lets you download my paper.
Download Excel file here.
Comments by scientists:
“Dear Ed, Congratulations – a wonderful piece of work.” – Dr. Nils-Axel Morner
“Ed does not make mathematical mistakes in solving his rate equations.” – Dr. William Happer
Dr. Richard Courtney wrote in his email to global-warming-realists@googlegroups.com on November 21, 2019:
Dear Ed,
I again provided my 2008 paper as an attachment to an email earlier today. Its conclusion to which you refer is on its pages 6 and 7 and says,
“In the light of all the above considerations it would appear that the relatively large increase of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere in the twentieth century (some 30%) is likely to have been caused by the increased mean temperature that preceded it. The main cause may be desorption from the oceans. The observed time lag of half a century is not surprising. Assessment of this conclusion requires a quantitative model of the carbon cycle, but – as previously explained – such a model cannot be constructed because the rate constants are not known for mechanisms operating in the carbon cycle.”
Your “physics model” quantifies the anthropogenic and natural contributions to changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration without need for knowledge of rate constants for individual mechanisms. This is a breakthrough in understanding which Segalstad, Harde, Salby, and myself all failed to make.
Richard
Author:
Ed Berry
- Edwin X Berry, PhD, Atmospheric Physics, CCM
- Climate Physics, LLC
- 439 Grand Dr #147
- Bigfork, Montana 59911, USA
The author retains sole right to publish the contents of the preprint.
Copyright © 2020 – 2021 by Edwin X Berry, Ph.D.
IPCC’s Table 6.1 relevant to comments beginning June 22, 2021.
This Preprint derives a complete carbon cycle model based upon the Physics model that I described in my Preprints #1 and #2.
This derivation is fundamental to all climate research. Yet, the USA government and the IPCC spent hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on their climate research without ever properly deriving a true carbon cycle model.
This Preprint proves the IPCC core hypothesis – that human emissions have caused all the CO2 rise above 280 ppm – is wrong. As a result, ALL climate publications that claim or assume the IPCC core hypothesis is true, are wrong. The claimed “97 percent support” for the alarmist climate agenda disappears.
The political implications of IPCC’s scientific fraud are significant. IPCC told the world its human carbon cycle was valid. The world trusted IPCC and changed the world economy. The world proposed climate treaties based upon IPCC’s fraud.
Media and government promote the fraud. Schools and universities promote the fraud. Social media “fact checking” promote the fraud. Government funds research that promotes the fraud. Non-profit corporations promote the fraud.
It is time to promote climate truth.
Quantum Activist, Amit Gotswami, in the everything Answer Book, nails the limits of classical Newtonian physics manifested by the Science of Governance.
Limits of Growth, Supremacy, Nuclear Winter, Peak Oil hoax, the Mickey Mouse IPCC Climate Science Models, Green New Deal Brown-energy and Pandemic Lockdowns are last remnants of Medieval to Classical Science of Governance.
The Genesis of Deep Ecologists Paul Ehrlich and Mechanical Engineer Stephen Schneider’s Single-Parameter CO2 Global Warming Model in 1972 was astrophysicists acceptance of the Malinkovitch Theory, the End of the Modern Interglacial and geological record of Mass Extinctions.
The 1973 Arab Oil Embargo was a Black Swan that threatened the US Petrodollar and International Monetary System.
The Arab League’s Oil Producing States had organized plans to create the first Arab hard currency before the West unified in the First Iraq Gulf War.
Cheap-Fossil Energy remained the primary threat to the Limits of Growth and New World Order.
Sen. Tim Wirth’s Subcommittee was first to hold Government Science Hearings on Global Warming, but only after V.P. Al Gore had reorganized and reset priority of key Federal Agencies.
Sen. Wirth resigned to lead the $1 Billion Ted Turner UN Foundation, one-third was dedicated to UN IPCC Lobbying over ten years.
The UN IPPC is a Science Governance Lobby where Stephen Schneider was the UN IPPC Director of Modeling until death in 2010.
New York City, London and EU Bankers and Financiers members are vested in selling hundreds of Trillions in Bonds to Sovereign Wealth Funds for the Mining and Manufacture of Infrastructure on the obsolete Renewables Tech.
The Greatest Ponzi Scheme the World has seen since the Dutch Tulip Bulbs.
Dr. Ed,
The one hypothesis that the entire model rests on: “outflow is proportional to level” (2) on page 9/10 … are you sure it’s true? Is it a fundamental law in physics that applies to all systems where something is flowing in and out of reservoirs?
I’d be grateful if you gave me a reference that supports this hypothesis.
Thanks a lot
Dear Renate,
No, hypothesis (2) is not a fundamental law of physics. For example, the flow of water over a dam does not follow Equation (2). However, chemical reactions follow (2).
As Section 2.4 shows, IPCC’s turnover time follows (2). The carbon cycle equations built on (2) accurately replicate IPCC’s natural carbon cycle data shown in Figure 2. That provides a valid reason to use (2) to test IPCC’s human carbon cycle.
Thank you for this effort. It is clear, reasonable, and soundly based. I look forward to your suggestions to “show you what we can do to restore truth to climate science”.
The material balance is always fulfilled for the system:
Inlets + Produced = Outlets + Accumulated
For the atmosphere there are CO2 inlets mainly natural (land and oceans) and anthropogenic (from fossil fuel combustion, industrial production and land use), so that:
Inlets = Nature_in + Anthrop_in
Produced = 0 (CH4 & CO concentration is ~0)
Outlets = Nature_out + Anthrop_out
Anthrop_out = 0 ppm.
Resulting in:
Nature_in + Anthrop_in = Nature_out+ Accumulated
Giving:
Nature_out – Nature_in = Anthrop_in – Accumulated
The right hand part of the equation is bigger than zero due to that the two terms are well known from e.g. atmospheric analysis (Mauna Loa site) and CO2 emission statistics.
Then the left hand part of the equation also is bigger than zero, i.e. atmosphere’s CO2 flow is net to the nature.
Even if the nature’s flow into the atmosphere is very big and not fully known, the flow out from the atmosphere, into the nature is bigger.
Kind regards
Anders Rasmusson
Dear Anders,
Thank you for your comment. I believe my derivation of the Physics model in Section 3.1 is more accurate and complete than what you present in your comment.
This balance argument is well known. It rests on circular reasoning: By assuming that the natural balance of input and output does not change, the net growth of CO2 must be due to the additional input from humans, which upsets the balance.
The fallacy has been undressed by Professor Salby. He shows from observed changes that the additional human input of CO2 is mostly cancelled by additional removal of CO2 that it causes. The net growth of CO2 therefore follows from changes in the natural balance, changes which this argument ignores.
https://youtu.be/b1cGqL9y548?t=27m42s
The mass balance argument is wholesale stupidity — not worthy of an entry on any comment page in the blogosphere. EVEN IF THE ENTIRE MASS OF ACO2 WERE TO SINK OUT, NATURE WOULD STILL BE A NET SINK FOR CO2.
Let’s say, for example, that aco2 were to have settled into oceanic/atmospheric system at a ratio of 50 (ocean) to 1 (atmosphere). The mass balance argument does not preclude this as a possibility. The atmospheric rise from aco2 would only have been 4 ppm all the while that we would have been observing more co2 going into the ocean than coming out. (Mass Balance = Non Sequitur)…
“Mass Balancers” are the carbon cycle equivalent of “Sky Dragon Slayers”. (don’t be a “mass balancer”… 😖)
Dear Fonzie,
I agree. The only equation we need to preserve mass is the Continuity Equation (1).
Dr Berry,
When will a print copy be available? I like to keep your preprints on my nightstand.
Dear Stephen,
Please see the top-right icons in the header of the PDF presenter. Press the down arrow to download the pdf file.
Hi. I am not a scientist, but find this article very interesting. When discussing with other people in climate related discussion forums it often comes out that the arguments against any article comes based on the journal it has been published in. So why is this not published in better journals then? Or what does it tell if the paper has not been good enough to be accepted in other journals?
Dear Pertti,
I have not yet submitted Preprint #3 to a journal. I am still improving it and readers, like DMA, still find some of my composition errors.
However, this Preprint #3 already has been reviewed extensively by top climate scientists. They approve it. No one has found a fundamental scientific error in Preprint #3. All climate alarmists have had the opportunity to challenge Preprint #3 but no opposing scientists has reported any error. So, it is fair to say that this Preprint #3 is as reliable as any peer-reviewed climate paper in any journal.
The field of climate science has become so politicalized that peer review means little. It amounts to pal review. If the reviewers for a journal are too stupid to understand why the IPCC core theory is wrong, then they will approve papers that support the theory and reject papers that prove the theory is wrong. That is not how science is supposed to work but that is how it works today in climate science.
In science, the message is important, the messenger is not. Many alarmists attack me, the messenger, but such attacks have no bearing on the truth of what Preprint #3 contains. You may wish to read my recent post https://edberry.com/blog/climate/climate-physics/you-are-not-causing-global-warming/ because it explains the results of Preprint #3 in simpler language.
Preprint #3 is not just one more general paper. Preprint #3 PROVES the UN IPCC human carbon cycle is a fraud. That simultaneously proves all IPCC peer-reviewed scientific publications that claim or assume IPCC’s core theory is true, are wrong. That shows how reliable peer-reviewed publication are. They will collapse as soon as someone finds an error in their logic, as Preprint #3 has done.
Thanks for the reply.
Dr. Ed
The last sentence in the abstract says “IPCC’s “real” human carbon cycle shows there is no climate emergency”
I’m being a bit picky but really your paper only shows there is no human caused emergency. There are lots of reasons not to accept the proclamation of “climate emergency” which is postulated on a human cause which implies a human solution but is based on the rising CO2 being dangerous. however,the point of your work and all the others that support yours is that humans aren’t causing CO2 to rise enough to make any difference so we cannot stop the rise.
Dear DMA,
Thank you for that catch. I forgot to add “human-caused” to that sentence in my Abstract. Now I have.
Hey Ed, we spoke over email earlier and I am commenting now after reading. I was just wondering why would these organisations lie? What would they gain from spreading miss information? And why do so many of them agree that we’re in the sixth mass extinction.
I’m really scared for my future and my family. I appreciate your efforts
Thank you
Elan
“And why do so many of them agree that we’re in the sixth mass extinction”.
Hi Elan, I looked into that. Greta Thunberg says 73,000 extinctions per year (200/day) and would like to answer that. The list provides some historical context. The real number of known extinctions is 1.7 per year (IUCN) and none from climate change, instead the crush of humanity. Due to 150 extra new people on earth each minute, hunting, expanding farmlands, new dams for power, pollution, pesticides etc.
From all I’ve been able to gather, it seems like the wild numbers boil down to flawed models that made blanket assumptions about fossil records, number of existing species, Amazon (and other) destruction applying worldwide and the like, all the while keeping their work hidden (I haven’t been able to find one of their formulas laid out clearly including their inputs, if anyone can, please let me know), plus the deliberate desire to motivate the public using large lies to short-circuit the reasoning portion of the brain, engaging fear.
Scientists Fangliang He and Stephen Hubbell wrote a model, and even they, later, realized there were flaws: “No proven direct methods or reliable data exist for verifying extinctions,” they noted in a paper published to the journal Nature in 2011.
“Hubbell’s point is that if you increase a habitat by, say, five hectares, and your calculations show that you expect there to be five new species in those five hectares, it is wrong to assume that reversing the model, and shrinking your habitat, eliminates five species.” –BBC
In the attempt to find a scientific paper backing the 200 per day claim, these are the bread crumbs. Earliest “200” is 1995:
2020, Greta Thunberg, Full Speech | Extinction Rebellion, https://youtu.be/hb4EVVuoggQ?t=200
… “about 200 species going extinct every single day” (73,000 per year)
2009, IUCN, https://portals.iucn.org/library/efiles/documents/RL-2009-001.pdf
… “There are 869 recorded extinctions” … “since the year 1500”
… That’s 1.7 extinct species per YEAR.
2004, UN Environment Programme, TUNZA for YOUTH, https://web.archive.org/web/20040724185618/https://www.unep.org/tunza/youth/What_you_always_wanted_to_know/State_of_%20Environment/biodiversity/key-facts_biodiversity.asp
… “It is estimated that between 150 and 200 species become extinct every day”
… No citation or reference. Page removed in 2009.
1997, Encyclopedia of World Problems & Human Potential, Decreasing diversity of biological species, http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/problem/142901
… “150 to 200 species”
… “World Bank and Worldwatch Institute, and reported to the Rio+5 conference in 1997, estimated 150 to 200 species of life become extinct every 24 hours”
1997, J. John Sepkoski Jr., Biodiversity: Past Present and Future, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1306574
… “range to 150 species etinctions per day (Ehrlich and Wilson, 1991)” [extinctions typo in paper],
… although Sepkoski adds “[total species] figure is misleading, however, because no official list of described species exists”
1995, Adam Rogers of United Nations, [Book] Taking action: An environmental guide for you and your community, https://books.google.com.sl/books?id=0QZOu-u9HHgC&printsec=frontcover
… “every 24 hours, an estimated 150 to 200 species of life become extinct” (in the preface)
… No citation or reference to any scientific paper.
1991, Paul R. Ehrlich and Edward O. Wilson, Biodiversity Studies: Science and Policy, https://faculty.lsu.edu/kharms/files/ehrlich_wilson_1991.pdf
… no mention of extinctions per day as Sepkoski said.
1989, WV Reid and K Miller, Keeping options alive: the scientific basis for conserving biodiversity, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Walter_Reid/publication/234604891_Keeping_Options_Alive_The_Scientific_Basis_for_Conserving_Biodiversity/links/5ab06904aca2721710fdf08c/Keeping-Options-Alive-The-Scientific-Basis-for-Conserving-Biodiversity.pdf
… “potential loss of” … “50 to 150 species per day”. Contains “climate change” 27 times.
1989, Walter V. Reid, How many species will there be?, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Vernon_Heywood/publication/255718235_Species_extinctions_in_tropical_forests/links/0deec52067f2053cb8000000.pdf#page=76
… “potential loss of” … “50 to 150 species per day”. Included in a larger IUCN report containing “climate change” 11 times.
… “An estimated 25 percent of the world’s species present in the mid-1980s may be extinct by the year 2015”.
1988, Edward O. Wilson Harvard University, Biodiversity, https://www.csu.edu/cerc/researchreports/documents/BiodiversityEOWilson1988.pdf
… “By the end of this century [year 2000], our planet could lose anywhere from 20 to 50% of its species”.
… Ok, so up to all species extinct by 2012, got it.
1979, Norman Myers, The sinking ark : a new look at the problem of disappearing species, https://www.worldcat.org/title/sinking-ark-a-new-look-at-the-problem-of-disappearing-species/oclc/5029035
… “at least 1 million by the end of the century”, contradicting himself.
… That’s 137 per day starting in 1980.
1979, Norman Myers, Conserving our Global Stock, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00139157.1979.9931212
… “present century, about one species per year”
Sometimes they are honest about their goal to be dishonest … “To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest.” –-Stephen Schneider, Discover Magazine Oct, 1989
As to why they lie, it took 60 years for it to sink in with me there are people for whom truth means nothing, they think this life is all there is, all they know is the game, a thrill from controlling others for fun and profit and power.
It appears there are over 130,000 web pages putting the myth of 200 species extinct per day in a blender with climate change as if known fact, even though they can’t name a single species definitively extinct from climate change ever. Believers.
IUCN is the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the authority on species extinctions.
“… over 1400 … organizations. Some 16,000 scientists and experts … 1000 full-time staff in more than 50 countries. Its headquarters are in Gland, Switzerland.”
I want Greta to publicly apologize for buying into that fairy tale and switch her message over to the real, living, IUCN “32,441 species threatened with extinction.” https://www.iucn.org/news/species/202007/almost-a-third-lemurs-and-north-atlantic-right-whale-now-critically-endangered-iucn-red-list
Then let groups do gofundme’s for example, each campaign to save a specific single species, one at a time. We would learn a lot in the process, improve management of our burgeoning world population, save many species, and it would rescue Greta’s future reputation looking back, as she is currently being ridiculed a lot, her wacky claim is harming team climate awareness.
“… all they know is the game, a thrill from controlling others for fun and profit and power.”
Love it!
For a few years, I’ve been saying this…
“It’s NOT ‘follow the money,’ it’s really ‘Follow the Money, The Power and The Control Over People.”
Nailed it.
Why would they lie? What is a lie? To say something you know to be untrue. In my opinion, these organizations believe their theories describe how the world works. Therefore, they are not lying, but they may be wrong.
Examples:
Continental mobility, until the evidence was discovered on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.
For a long time, the germ theory of duodenal ulcers was rejected.
For a long time, humans were reported to have 48 chromosomes.
I think it worthwhile to read Thomas Kuhn’s, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. I do not regard Kuhn as a philosopher, but rather as an historian of science. Some of his concepts are vague and variable. But he makes a lot of good points on the politics of science, the role of the leaders in a field as gatekeepers who ensure that a prevailing paradigm is defended and promoted. He defines this as “normal” science, which prevails until another paradigm has sufficient support to be accepted as a new paradigm. That switch is a scientific revolution.
A point often made is that before a paradigm is overturned there must be phenomena that the paradigm cannot explain. (Such as an aberration in the orbit of Mercury.)
In climate there are plenty of problems with the accepted paradigm. I name one.
Tiny variations in Bond albedo could account for global warming estimates based on ocean heat content. A series of estimates of energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere between 2005 and 2012 put the figure at 0.5 Watt per square meter (Wm-2). Source: Loeb et al, 2012. Simple arithmetic gives solar energy of 340 Wm-2 at the top of the atmosphere, of which about 102 Wm-2 is reflected back to space, based on an albedo of 0.30, (30%) and 238 W-m2 enters the troposphere. A 0.5 percent decline in albedo would decrease sunlight reflected back to space by 0.5 Wm-2 and increase the energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) from equilibrium to 0.5 Wm-2. Substantial research by many scientists estimates this is equal to the energy imbalance at TOA.
The dominant controls for albedo are clouds (high albedo). As the amount of cloud increases, albedo rises. Can albedo be measured to within 0.5 per cent of 0.30 over the period 1960-2020, 0.30 plus or minus 0.0015? In my opinion, based on the literature, the answer is no.
This does not prove anything, but it does show that the following statement is unsupported, “The observed climate change cannot be explained by natural variation.” I claim that the amount of climate change observed since 1960 can be explained by tiny variations in Bond albedo.
This justifies testing other paradigms based on variations in cloud cover.
References:
Hansen, J. et al. 2005: Earth’s energy imbalance: Confirmation and implications. Science, 308, 1431-1435
Hansen, James, et al. “Earth’s energy imbalance and implications.”Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 11.24 (2011)
Loeb, Norman G., et al. “Observed changes in top-of-the-atmosphere radiation and upper-ocean heating consistent within uncertainty.” Nature Geoscience 5.2 (2012): 110-113.
Stephens, Graeme L., et al. “An update on Earth’s energy balance in light of the latest global observations.” Nature Geoscience 5.10 (2012): 691-696.
They lie because they have an agenda … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vb7JRK4Yko
I found pre-print 1 the best of the three and pre print 3 the worst.
It is far harder to ready and seems messy and erratic.
It also has a bunch of minor mistakes in it which make it a bit of a chore to read. Also can you post a PDF link, that reader is annoying and makes cut and pasting from it remove spaces.
For example,
“.IPCCmerely inserteditscoretheoryintoits human carbon cyclewhichcircular reasoning”
This should say ” which is circular reasoning”.
Also whenever you mention IPCC it does not have the word the in front of it which makes reading it feels wrong. It should be proceeded with the word the in almost every instance.
There is a few other minor errors to do with missing words etc.
The first section doesnt feel like you have enough evidence. You just quote a paper but don’t elaborate enough.
Honestly I wish this was a bit more like pre print 1.
I still think the physics model is great and your points are valid it just doesn’t seem to be explained as simply and clearly as the pre print 1.
Have you performed a sanity check on your model? Your model suggests that more CO2 has made its way into the deep oceans than into the atmosphere, land, and ocean surface combined.
This suggests that your coefficients are incorrect, or that neglecting the fact that the coefficients are temperature and concentration dependent is a fatal flaw for your toy model.
You also have no explanation for where the extra 100ppm in the atmosphere comes from. Have you considered the fact that your model is wrong?
One last comment. Do you know that there is a closed form analytical solution for your model? I’ll provide it to you if you like.
Dear Immortal600,
Have you performed a sanity check on your comment?
My calculation of IPCC’s true human carbon cycle uses the same time constants that IPCC uses in its natural carbon cycle. So, there is no basis to claim I used the wrong coefficients.
If you claim my time constants are wrong, then you also claim IPCC’s time constants are wrong. And if IPCC’s time constants are wrong then you help me prove IPCC’s core theory is wrong.
IPCC used vastly different time constants for its human carbon cycle than it used for its natural carbon cycle. That proves IPCC’s core theory is wrong.
I don’t need to explain where the 100 ppm supplied by nature comes from. I address that issue in section 4.6. Did you read that?
Yes, I would like to see a “closed form solution” of my carbon cycle model.
Of course I have done a check on my comment. I solved your model.
Your model is flawed because you do not get the time constants correct. The IPCC’s time constants are not wrong. If you bothered to read the report and understand it then you would have seen that the time scale for sequestration into the deep oceans is at least on the order of 10,000 years. They also discuss the other time scales. You can’t calculate time scales for non-equilibrium processes based on the equilibrium exchanges as you have naively done. Do you understand that across a surface in a metal wire with zero voltage drop across it, there are countless electrons flying back and forth across that surface? However, the current flowing through that surface is zero. Given that information do you think you can calculate the resistance? The fact is that you can’t. You have confused the content of the CO2 in each reservoir with the generalized chemical potential of that content. At equilibrium the chemical potential in each of the reservoirs is equal. Away from equilibrium, the net flux between each reservoir is related to the difference in the chemical potential. The mobility coefficient describing that flux then can be used to set a time scale for non-equilibrium processes. You cannot determine those mobility coefficients by looking at what is happening at equilibrium, just like you cannot determine the resistance of a wire by looking at the electrons flying back and forth when there is no potential drop.
So, it is not the IPCC that is wrong, but it is you who has made a fundamental error in interpreting the information that was given by the IPCC.
You do need to explain where the extra CO2 comes from if you want to be taken seriously. The ocean and land sinks have been measured. Look up Global Carbon Budget 2019. Given that both the oceans and the land have taken more CO2 out from the atmosphere than they have put into it, that means that they cannot be the source of the atmospheric increase.
I generated the following coefficients for your model based on ~10, ~100, and ~10000 year time scales for the land to atmosphere, ocean surface to atmosphere, and ocean surface to deep ocean exchanges respectively. They yield far more reasonable results than your faulty procedure.
T12=2.356
T21=10
T23=100
T32=65.444
T34=6544.44
T43=158.76
The closed form solution looks as follows:
L1 = L1eq + C11 Exp[-a1 t] + C21 Exp[-a2 t] + C31 Exp[-a3 t] + C01 Exp[a0 t]
L2 = L2eq + C12 Exp[-a1 t] + C22 Exp[-a2 t] + C32 Exp[-a3 t] + C02 Exp[a0 t]
L3 = …
L4 = …
Where a1, a2, and a3 are the eigenvalues of a matrix that depends on your coefficients, and the C’s are the associated eigenvectors. The C0 terms are the particular solution for an exponential fit to the human source term. I can provide more detail if necessary, but if you understand math well enough then this should be enough for you to generate it yourself.
Good paper on the sequestration of carbon dioxide in the oceans.
Ridgwell, A. and Zeebe, R.E., 2005. The role of the global carbonate cycle in the regulation and evolution of the Earth system. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 234(3-4), pp.299-315.’
https://www.hydra-institute.com/de/ifm/pdf/biosand/Carbonate%20Production%20ms%202008.pdf
Their estimate is still thousands of years, but much shorter than the period you cited.
Dear Immortal600,
Thank you for your comment. I appreciate critiques.
First, let’s dispense with your “closed form solution.” I purposely wrote my equations to readily be imported into matrix algebra. From there, we can to a relaxation calculation. It turns out the this relaxation calculation produces identical results to the numerical calculations I do in my Excel spreadsheet.
Second, do you agree that IPCC’s numbers for its natural carbon cycle (as shown in my Figure 3) represent an equilibrium situation?
I think IPCC makes it quite clear that its natural carbon cycle is at equilibrium and represents IPCC’s claimed conditions in the absence of human CO2.
If that is true, then any valid e-times must keep IPCC’s levels constant in its 4 reservoirs. However, using your e-times, IPCC’s levels quickly fall out of equilibrium. In fact, your e-times move most of the carbon into the atmosphere. Not very realistic. So, you have a whole lot of explaining to do to justify your e-times.
I put the tabular summary of the results of the calculation using your e-times at the top of these comments. Looks to me like your e-times totally disagree with IPCC’s numbers. Please explain.
First) You are free to not provide readers with an analytical solution to your model. Doing so would make it more accessible to anyone that would want to play around with it. You could probably construct an Excel spreadsheet that anyone can download and play with to see how the coefficients affect the solution.
Second) I’m not an expert on the topic. You are claiming that it is an equilibrium situation with respect to your model and I am happy to go with that terminology for now.
You have ASSUMED that the forward flux from reservoir A to reservoir B is INDEPENDENT of the chemical potential of the species in reservoir B. That is incorrect. That flux can be approximated with a Taylor series expansion that includes a constant term associated with zero chemical potential difference which can be taken from the “equilibrium” IPCCs numbers, and a linear term associated with the difference in chemical potential. Those terms CANNOT be determined from the “equilibrium” numbers that are given, and it is those terms that determine the non-equilibrium rates.
3) “However, using your e-times, IPCC’s levels quickly fall out of equilibrium.”
Indeed, my workbook inverted one of your definitions and I forgot to put it back into the form you use. The corrected numbers for the T’s are:
T12 = 42.4448
T21 = 10
T23 = 100
T32 = 152.801
T34 = 15280.1
T43 = 629881
My apologies for the error, and for causing you to waste time on that.
In any case, you should see that those corrected numbers do not lead to as much CO2 in the deep ocean. If you change the atmosphere to land time scale to ~50 years, then it starts to look even better:
T12 = 212.224
T21 = 50
T23 = 100
T32 = 152.801
T34 = 15280.1
T43 = 629881
Again, my apologies for that prior inversion error. So, here is what happens if I make the atmosphere to land and atmosphere to ocean surface times scales both at ~100.
T12=424.448
T21=100
T23=100
T32=152.801
T34=15280.1
T43=629881
For the simple exponential fit to the human emissions that I used, I get the following ppm changes in the land, atmosphere, ocean surface, and deep ocean:
Land: 1179 to ~1220 -> ~21%
Atmosphere: 278 to ~400 -> ~62%
Surface: 425 to ~460 -> ~18% (roundoff errors evident)
Deep: 17500 to ~17500 -> ~0%
Total input was ~ 196
Dear Immortal600,
Your e-times have my interest. Are the e-times above (5:57 AM) your latest, so I can ignore your previous ones?
Please explain how you calculated these e-times. Provide references if applicable.
I want to follow your derivation.
Thanks
Yes, those are the latest. I think you could play with the numbers more, but I don’t see the point. These do a reasonable job for such a simple model.
Also, my apologies for not looking into your Excel workbook more thoroughly. I now see that folks can play with these numbers and see what happens. In any case, I wanted to generate the solution for myself and we get basically the same story. It’s up to you if you think it is worth your while to generate the analytical solution. It is a 3×3 matrix (since L4 is not independent) and so the algebraic formulas are a bit messy.
My times are very rough estimates to mimic the time scales stated on page 472 Ch. 6 of the IPCC report.
Take these “time scales” for land to atmosphere to be S12, atmosphere to ocean surface to be S23, and ocean surface to ocean depths to be S34. I take the equilibrium concentration in the atmosphere, L2eq, to set the baseline for chemical potential. Then the T’s are calculated as follows:
T12 = L1eq/L2eq * S12
T21 = L2eq/L2eq * S12
T23 = L2eq/L2eq * S23
T32 = L3eq/L2eq * S23
T34 = L3eq/L2eq * S34
T43 = L4eq/L2eq * S34
That first prefactor of L?eq/L2eq ensures that the chemical potentials at equilibrium are each the same and that the equilibrium solution does not change for no human forcing. Then the S12, S23, and S34 scales can be adjusted accordingly (100, 100, and 10000 above).
Dear Immortal600,
Thank you. I will look at that IPCC page and get back to you.
By the way, I understand that for equilibrium, we need (where F = flows):
F12 = F21
F23 = F32
F34 = F43
Both your values for Te and my values for Te satisfy those constraints. If we assume we agree on IPCC’s reservoir levels, then our key disagreement is in the equilibrium flows between the reservoirs. My flows equal the IPCC flows in Figure 3. Your flows do not equal the IPCC flows.
Please explain why your flows do not equal the IPCC flows.
I have tried to explain this already. The forward flow from reservoir a to reservoir b can be expanded into a Taylor series as:
Fab = Fab0 + kab (mu_a – mu_b)
the forward flow from b to a is then
Fba = Fab0 + kba (mu_b – mu_a)
Fab0 is the equilibrium forward flux (and must be the same for Fab and Fba) and does not enter into a proper thermodynamic interpretation of your model. It is Fab0 that is essentially given in the IPCC report, but what is needed for the model are the kab and kba terms.
The chemical potentials can be linearized about the equilibrium state. So, your formulation has all that is needed for such a linearized model, but your interpretation of Fab0 is incorrect.
The point is that the forward fluxes from the equilibrium state shown in the IPCC report DO NOT set the time scales for non-equilibrium processes. The k’s do this, and those are discussed qualitatively in Ch. 6 of the IPCC report.
P.S. mu is chemical potential
Dear Immortal600,
Thank you for your explanation of how you calculated your e-times.
Here is my interpretation of IPCC’s Chapter 6, pages 467-472.
IPCC explains its Figure 6.1 (my Figure 3) as follows:
(1) “Numbers represent reservoir mass, also called ‘carbon stocks’ in PgC (1 PgC = 1015 gC) and annual carbon exchange fluxes (in PgC yr–1).”
(2) “Black numbers and arrows indicate reservoir mass and exchange fluxes estimated for the time prior to the Industrial Era, about 1750.”
Your numbers come from:
(3) “Box 6.1, Table 1. The main natural processes that remove CO2 consecutive to a large emission pulse to the atmosphere, their atmospheric CO2 adjustment time scales, and main (bio)chemical reactions involved.”
Items (1) and (2) are very clear. The numbers in IPCC’s Figure 6.1 represent IPCC’s best estimates of the reservoir levels and the annual flows between the levels at equilibrium. IPCC’s core theory says its natural carbon cycle data is valid after 1750. This means its flows keep its levels constant, which they do after I make very small adjustments to IPCC’s flows.
Item (3) does not override items (1) and (2). Item (3) is about how a fictitious large pulse of CO2 would flow out of the atmosphere. It is based upon the assumption that IPCC’s core theory is true. This assumption invalidates the papers that made these calculations.
Not even IPCC claims these (3) numbers apply to its natural carbon cycle.
IPCC applies these numbers only to its human carbon cycle. This, of course, contradicts the Equivalence Principle.
I conclude your e-times apply only to IPCC’s model for a theoretical carbon pulse that first assumed IPCC’s core theory is true.
Nevertheless, I thank you very much for your very useful comments.
“Items (1) and (2) are very clear. The numbers in IPCC’s Figure 6.1 represent IPCC’s best estimates of the reservoir levels and the annual flows between the levels at equilibrium. IPCC’s core theory says its natural carbon cycle data is valid after 1750. This means its flows keep its levels constant, which they do after I make very small adjustments to IPCC’s flows.”
I have no problem with your adjustments. Again, these flows are the Fab0’s that I explained in my prior comment.
You will note that the Fab0’s do not enter into your model because your model always has Fab – Fba.
Fab – Fba = [Fab0 + kab (mu_a – mu_b)] – [Fab0 + kba (mu_b – mu_a)] = (kab + kba) (mu_a – mu_b)
Hence, it is the (kab + kba) that sets the time scales for non-equilibrium processes in your model. The equilibrium flows, Fab0, cancel one another out.
“Item (3) does not override items (1) and (2). Item (3) is about how a fictitious large pulse of CO2 would flow out of the atmosphere.”
No, it does not override (1) and (2), it supplements them. Item (3) explains what the time scales are for non-equilibrium processes, which is exactly what is needed in your model.
“So, in summary, I stand by my e-times derived from IPCC’s natural carbon cycle.”
That is your error. Your “e-times” come from Fab0, where they need to come from (kab+kba). Your thermodynamics is wrong.
“I conclude your e-times apply only to IPCC’s model for a theoretical carbon pulse”
They apply to ALL non-equilibrium situations for your model.
I see there may be some confusion on my response to:
“Not even IPCC claims these (3) numbers apply to its natural carbon cycle.”
To clarify, the numbers in (3) apply to all situations when the system is out of equilibrium, and those numbers do not play a role when the system is in equilibrium. I read ‘natural carbon cycle” in two different ways. I think a less confusing terminology is equilibrium and non-equilibrium, as the natural effects are occurring is both scenarios.
Ed,
To summarize, the point of contention is on the kinetic relationship between the flows, F12 …, and the L’s (which I will refer to as concentrations).
You ASSUME that the form is as follows:
Fab = La/Tab
I make NO assumptions, but I expand about the equilibrium state. I also invoke the thermodynamic restriction that the flow must depend on the difference in the chemical potential. I’m not sure if you are aware of this or not. This means that
Fab = Fab0 + kab (mu_a – mu_b) + 1/2 m_ab (mu_a – mu_b)^2 + …
I then linearize by taking the first two terms. Furthermore, I can expand the chemical potentials about the equilibrium state as well in terms of the concentration in reservoir a, as follows:
mu_a = mu_a0 + ca La + 1/2 da La^2
Again, I linearize and keep only the first two terms. Note that at equilibrium mu_a = mu_b, and so we have after linearization:
mu_a0 + ca Laeq = mu_b0 + cb Lbeq
Plugging back into the linearized expansion for the flow we have:
Fab = Fab0 + kab (mu_a – mu_b) = Fab0 + kab (mu_a0 + ca La – mu_b0 – cb Lb)
= Fab0 + kab [ ca (La-Laeq) – cb (Lb-Lbeq) ]
This is the most general form linearized about the equilibrium state.
Your form does not even respect the thermodynamic restriction that the flow from one reservoir to the other must depend on the chemical potential difference between the two reservoirs.
Dear Immortal600,
See Section 4.3. Preprint #3 proves (3) is wrong before you even get to use (3).
(3) is not only wrong, it does not apply to the natural carbon cycle. IPCC does not apply (3) to its natural carbon cycle. IPCC applies (3) only to its human carbon cycle.
IPCC (1, 2) says its flows are valid to 20 percent. Yet you use IPCC’s (3) to multiply IPCC’s (1, 2) flows by 0.0546 and 0.0006, way outside IPCC’s error bounds.
If IPCC (1, 2) were that far off, don’t you think IPCC would have put different numbers (1, 2)? Of course, IPCC would have changed its numbers in its Figure 6.1.
IPCC’s (1,2) is an equilibrium scenario. Even the addition of human carbon to IPCC’s (1,2) is not enough carbon to make any significant difference to this equilibrium. A Taylor expansion will change its primary number by those factors, even when the system is close to equilibrium.
You have not shown the carbon cycle system is far enough from equilibrium to justify your numbers. Given that IPCC’s natural carbon cycle (2) is at equilibrium, your Taylor series is negligible.
Physics does not justify adding additional terms to equation (2). Physics and chemistry show outflow is proportional to level to the first power. If you add additional terms then the perfect gas law fails, standard pharmaceutical models fail, Dalton’s law of partial pressure fails, etc.
Occam’s Razor favors the simplest solution to a problem. You present a more complicated solution.
Preprint #3 proves IPCC’s core theory is wrong by showing its human carbon cycle contradicts its natural carbon cycle.
Thank you again for your comments.
Yes, I do get that (3) is not data.
Do you understand what a Taylor series expansion about equilibrium is?
Do you understand that the equilibrium flows do not tell you anything about the non-equilibrium rates?
“Preprint #3 proves (3) is wrong”
It does no such thing. Preprint #3 makes an invalid interpretation of the information provided by the IPCC. This has now been explained to you with equations and you still do not understand it.
Here it is again.
Fab = Fab0 + kab (mu_a – mu_b)
Fab0 comes from the IPCC’s (1) and (2).
kab comes from the IPCC’s (3).
Both apply to ALL scenarios including equilibrium and non-equilibrium.
All qualified physicists would understand what chemical potential is, and would understand how to carry out a Taylor series expansion about equilibrium. Qualified physicists would reject the numbers that you have gotten for the deep oceans and question why. I have explained to you why.
Your ASSUMED equation (2) is incorrect as I have explained.
You have created a toy model and interpreted its terms in a physically incorrect manner. Furthermore, you are ignoring the data analyzed and published in the Global Carbon Budget 2019 that shows that both the land and oceans have taken more CO2 out from the atmosphere than they have put in over the last 100 years.
Those facts alone show that the land and oceans are not the source for the atmospheric increase. Those facts alone show that humans are responsible for the increases in each of these reservoirs. Even your faulty model shows that each of the reservoirs INCREASES in CO2 content due to human emissions.
The kinetic equation in question is an approximation for a highly complex system. The oceans emit CO2 in the tropics and absorb CO2 near the poles. The kinetic equations in this toy model are lumping all of those processes into one equation. The most general analysis of that lumped system is what I have described for you by using a Taylor series expansion about equilibrium. That is how dynamical systems are analyzed.
Dear Immortal600,
Thank you for your final comment.
Figure 8 explains how IPCC’s slow processes affect the outflow of CO2. Figure 8 assumes all human CO2 emissions stop in 2020. Once stopped, the scenario is like a pulse of human CO2 of 33 ppm was added to the atmosphere.
The curve after 2020 shows how fast human CO2 in the atmosphere flows to the other reservoirs according to IPCC’s fast processes as shown in Figure 3. But the human-caused increase will never return to zero in the Physics model. That is because the fast processes do not remove carbon from the carbon cycle. They only redistribute carbon among the reservoirs.
Only IPCC’s slow processes remove carbon from the carbon cycle and the Physics carbon cycle model does not include IPCC’s slow processes. The Physics carbon cycle model leaves more carbon in the carbon cycle than the IPCC model does.
Figure 8 says if we allow the fast processes to distribute the human carbon added as of 2020 without calculating how IPCC’s slow processes would remove the carbon, the long-term effect is to add about 5 ppm to atmospheric CO2.
I think you incorrectly revised IPCC’s fast flows to become very small flows according to IPCC’s slow processes. IPCC’s fast and slow processes are independent.
I want everyone on this site know that I AM the REAL ‘Immortal600’ who posts elsewhere using that moniker. I am mostly on cfact but do post elsewhere. I don’t want to be associated with that clown above who stole my handle so he could post here. He posts as ‘Straight Flush’ and ‘evenminded’ elsewhere.
Don’t be confused! I agree with Dr. Berry’s model and tout it everywhere I go. It is logical and clear. I admit I do not understand the deep math (calculus) but I know others do. If there were errors in the formulas someone would have pointed that out.
The Taylor Series explanations used by the imposter ‘Immortal600’ are incorrect usage and give results, as Dr. Berry has pointed out, out of the range of IPCC figures. I am told this by other math majors whose expertise far outshines my own.
And ‘Dave Burton’… don’t forget that he’s also hijacked the name of another skeptic.
I’ve been drop-kicking that kook up one side of CFACT and down the other for more than two years… he claimed he could refute physicist Dr. Charles R. Anderson, PhD’s radiative physics, claimed he’d read the physics text from which Anderson arrived at his conclusions… when tasked with quoting pages 55 and 225 from that text (proving himself wrong in the process), or admit that he’d been caught in a lie (proving himself wrong in the process and proving himself a liar), he up and ran away.
That was 4 days ago… you can expect he’ll show up again, spouting the same deluded tripe, under some other skeptics name… but definitely not mine. LOL
And ‘looksquirrel101’ on StackExchange… same guy, always wrong, always twisting everything in often subtle ways to conform to the climate catastrophe narrative.
My suggestion to Dr. Berry is to perma-block the kook under any of his known ‘nyms, and should he pop his head up again, do the same for any new ‘nyms.
Do keep in mind that the kook suffers from OCD and he’s a spiteful little kook… he actually attempted to dox physicist Dr. Charles R. Anderson, PhD and do financial damage to his materials analysis laboratory because Anderson proved him wrong once years prior (with the kook socked up as an anonymous coward, no less… which I later forced him to admit was him, hence his years-long obsession with Anderson)… so don’t be surprised if, at some point in the future, the kook uses Anderson’s name in your comments sections, or yours, Dr. Berry, elsewhere on the internet.
To be fair on mathematics, Taylor polynomials are an excellent tool if used correctly to tweak or finite your math or verify your work. However, as an infinite series it can be used to misinterpret the work. Like everything in science, it’s not the math tool that’s wrong it’s the tool using that math that can be wrong. Using any infinite series with a slightly wrong calculation or deliberate change can create an exponentially incorrect value.
Just as an example if you input a single temperature data for a 12 month year, use the coolest temp and average that out for the year you can make older years look cooler than newer warmer years. You can manipulate values to coerce a desired outcome and by using any infinite series you can hide those values more easily. The best way to hide a lie is to cover it with more data.
I’d love to crack open these “climate models” and see how older temperature data has been treated in them. I did it once and the code -37268 showed up about 90% of the time on older temperature data. That code was for a null set. I did inquire about the data I did not receive a response other than a generalized nothing to see here move along.
I am not an expert on climate models and would have been willing to hear an explanation, they were not want to give one. You see for an infinite series like climate models you can cheat by using that code and bury it in over 3,624,768 entries and some neurotic individual like myself would find the pattern and wonder why they were there.
I am just a computer scientist and a mechanical engineer so I am not an expert in this field but I find your observations and analysis very interesting. This worldwide economy slowdown because of covid has provided us with a significant worldwide reduction in CO2 emission but still the level of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to rise at the same speed as before. That seems to support your analysis.
I am not a scientist either. Just an interested observer.
Dr Ed, have you seen this?
David Evans Andrews. Correcting an Error in Some Interpretations of Atmospheric 14C Data. Earth Sciences. Vol. 9, No. 4, 2020, pp. 126-129.
doi: 10.11648/j.earth.20200904.12
Dear John,
Yes, I am aware of it. Thank you for adding the reference for the readers.
Even if Andrews is correct, his paper has no bearing on this Preprint #3 because Preprint #3 does not use any argument that depends upon 14C data. Also, his paper has no bearing on the conclusions of my 2019 paper as Andrews claims because I can remove, or even revise, the 14C discussion without having to change the paper’s conclusions.
Dr Ed,
Your response is much appreciated.
I am not an American but I pray for all Americans and Presidents Donald’s Trumps success for a second term.
I think he has identified the evil intent of the NWO
Dear Dr. Berry,
Now that your book is out, I wonder if you have had time to address this post from a while ago (reproduced here with minor edits):
The following simple model explains the apparent different behavior of natural and anthropogenic carbon. It is not meant to be an actual model of the oceanic carbon cycle, but it will demonstrate the relevant mathematics. Also this model will show, at least in principle, how the lifetime of CO2 concentration perturbations can differ from the lifetime of isotopic tracers like carbon-14. For both of these questions, the key is nonlinearity.
Consider a system containing a mass m of some substance (maybe CO2). There is a constant inflow of 1 kg/s. The outflow is O=-C m^2 (we will just write C=1, but really C=1 kg^-1 s^-1). Then
dm/dt = 1-m^2 (1)
Clearly an equilibrium is reached when 1-m^2=0. This occurs at the value m=meq=1 kg. Also, the outflow is equal to 1 kg/s. Thus at equilibrium the e-time for a given molecule to leave is (1 kg)/(1 kg/s)=1 s.
What happens when a small amount of mass x is added? We could solve the full nonlinear equation (1), but nonlinear equations are difficult and unintuitive. Instead we write m=meq+x and examine the outflow term, m^2. The outflow becomes O=-(meq+x)^2=-meq^2-2 meq x-x^2. We can ignore the term in x^2 because x is small — of course this is just a Taylor expansion. Then O~-meq^2-2 meq x. The differential equation becomes
d(meq+x)/dt = 1-meq^2-2 meq x
d(meq+x)/dt = 0-2 meq x
dx/dt = -2 meq x
dx/dt = -2 x
Notice that the equilibrium inflows and outflows canceled out, leaving just the added mass x. Now, this equation looks like a decay of x with e-time 0.5 s. Here is the key point: we already determined that the e-time for a given molecule to leave is 1 s. However, if a small perturbation from equilibrium is added, that perturbation decays with a different e-time of 0.5 s. There are two different sorts of e-times at play here. This only occurs in a nonlinear system. In a linear system, the two e-times are the same.
This already gives intuition for why natural and anthropogenic carbon may appear to be treated differently in the Bern model. Natural carbon dominates the total flows of carbon, and the total flows set the e-time for individual molecules to move between reservoirs. These are the e-times you have calculated from Figure 3 in your preprint 3. The equilibrium is perturbed only when new carbon is added, which is done by humans. Such a perturbation decays back to equilibrium with a different e-time.
The point of this was to show that, for nonlinear flows, there are two types of e-times. The story becomes slightly more complicated when moving from this simple one-reservoir model to the full, 4-reservoir model. Then there are also the decay times in the Green’s function, which are different still.
But sticking with the simple model, there is one more interesting conclusion. If a few molecules of isotopic tracer like carbon-14 are added, the total mass will decay back to equilibrium with an e-time of 0.5 s. But if we keep track of a given tracer molecule, it will leave with an e-time of 1 s. That is why the lifetime of an isotopic perturbation can differ from the lifetime of the mass perturbation. I have thought of a nice way to formalize this, but the post is already quite long.
This is far from a realistic model of the carbon cycle — I don’t pretend to know exactly what the flow rates are, or to have modeled the nonlinearities well. But I believe this shows the important effects which are added by any nonlinearity, and cannot be captured by a fully linear model like the one in your Preprint 3.
Dear Tim,
Thank you very much for your comment. I apologize for my delay to reply.
I agree with your equations that show a Taylor expansion of your assumed nonlinear equation for outflow. So, we have no issue with your math. That narrows our discussion to whether the components of the carbon cycle system are best described by linear or nonlinear equations.
My equation (2) assumes a linear system. By contrast, you have assumed a nonlinear system. You agree that your specific nonlinear equation is not realistic. I understand that you use your example to illustrate how a nonlinear system would behave.
Physics is also decided by Occam’s Razor, or the simplest solution that fits the data wins.
Arguably, the best data we have on the carbon cycle are in the IPCC natural carbon cycle. These data, remarkably, perfectly fit the linear model. Until data prove it is necessary to use a nonlinear model, Occam’s Razor requires us to use the linear model.
You wrote, “And due to the buffer chemistry of CO2 in seawater, the outflow to the atmosphere is nonlinear.”
However, the IPCC carbon cycle data do not reveal this nonlinearity. Further, chemical reaction models use linear equations. Pharmacology models use linear equations that assume the reaction is proportional to level.
You wrote, “The equilibrium is perturbed only when new carbon is added, which is done by humans. Such a perturbation decays back to equilibrium with a different e-time.”
Well, it decays back with a different e-time ONLY if the system is nonlinear. IPCC data do not support a nonlinear assumption.
Humans have added only about one percent to the carbon in the natural carbon cycle. Stomata data and chemical data show that nature changes the amount of carbon in the carbon cycle much more than human carbon has added to the carbon in the carbon cycle.
Even if the system were slightly nonlinear, we would not expect an additional one percent to provide a measurable signal of nonlinearity.
You wrote, “This already gives intuition for why natural and anthropogenic carbon may appear to be treated differently in the Bern model.”
No, the IPCC treats human carbon differently than it treats natural carbon because it assumes – contrary to its own data – that human carbon has caused all the increase in atmospheric CO2 above 280 ppm. That incorrect assumption is IPCC’s major error.
You wrote, “That is why the lifetime of an isotopic perturbation can differ from the lifetime of the mass perturbation.”
The 14C in the atmosphere does not contribute enough additional carbon to the carbon cycle to change the e-time under any reasonable assumption of nonlinearity. The much larger error in using 14C to track 12C flows is in the slower chemical reaction time of 14C compared to 12C.
The following is a digression from my main argument:
Consider a real nonlinear system of a tall beaker with a faucet at the bottom. Fill the beaker with water and open the faucet. Measure how fast the level decreases. This system is nonlinear because it changes potential energy into the kinetic energy to cause water to flow out of the spout. So,
Outflow = SQR(2g * Level)
Its square-root is the reverse of your square. The e-time changes with level. But we understand why the e-time changes because we have the equation to express the nonlinearity. If the level remained within a few percent of its original level, we would need accurate measurements to detect its nonlinearity. We could approximate it reasonably well with a linear equation.
[end digression]
In conclusion, to support your argument that the flows in the natural carbon cycle are nonlinear, you must develop a nonlinear carbon cycle model that replicates the IPCC carbon cycle data better than the linear carbon cycle of my equation (2). That will be difficult because the IPCC says its data are accurate to only about 20 percent and my equation (2) replicates IPCC’s mean data to a fraction of one percent.
Thank you again for your comment.
Ed
I agree with your conclusions, Berry. I am no expert and certainly no authority, but below is a small article I put together explaining why I think the CO2 increase could be natural. It’s only an armchair skeptic’s view of the situation and I am sure I have left out important points, but I feel some of the points I bring up are worth consideration.
https://chipstero7.wordpress.com/2020/12/10/why-the-observed-atmospheric-co2-increase-could-be-natural/
Sorry, Dr. Ed and everyone else… I lost interest when the First Immortal600 made this statement..
“Do you understand that across a surface in a metal wire with zero voltage drop across it, there are countless electrons flying back and forth across that surface? However, the current flowing through that surface is zero. Given that information do you think you can calculate the resistance? The fact is that you can’t. ”
As a person with a degree in Electrical Engineering, I considered that, while there might be “countless electrons flying back and forth across that surface,” the point is irrelevant to their assertion. If there is no current flowing down the length of the wire, yes, it IS impossible to measure the wire’s resistance directly, as the Resistance (R) == The voltage difference from one end of the wire to the other end (E), divided by the RESULTING Current Flow (I). [R=E/I].
So, with not current flowing through a path external to the wire, its resistance is indeterminate, and the electrons scurrying across its surface are irrelevant to any and all ‘issues at hand.’
… barely even a ‘red herring’… an irrelevant and unnecessary sentence added to an insulting paragraph.
But it hit my “EE” button. 🙂
Alan Falk,
The First Immortal600 turns up in many places and uses many false names. His/her/them/it is easily identified by the distinctive ‘style’ and always displays the purpose of casting doubt on valid information which does not support climate alarmism.
I have had several interactions with him/her/them/it. All were unpleasant and as example I cite one on WUWT where he/she/they/it used the name “Rich Davis” while attempting to disrupt discussion of evidence concerning anthropogenic and natural contributions to the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration. In that discussion he/she/they/it attempted the same erroneous .mass balance closure’ argument which he/she/they/it puts to Ed Berry above.
The cited example I cite is in the thread at
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/11/29/slight-beneficial-warming-from-more-carbon-dioxide/
That example begins with “Rich Davis” replying to a post of John Shotsky at November 29, 2020 12:03 pm, and ends with these final comments from him/her/them/it and me
“Rich Davis
December 1, 2020 4:45 pm
Courtney,
This is all very basic engineering that I learned more than 40 years ago. And for you to call me rude is quite rich, given your continuous stream of abuse and condescension.
Do you have any education whatsoever? It is not apparent.
Richard S Courtney
Reply to
Rich Davis
December 1, 2020 10:20 pm
Davis,
You have ignored everything I have told you of our published work.
I have refuted with evidence each of your attempts to make a point.
You have accosted me with words and phrases such as “bloviating” and “redundant verbiage”.
I have patiently explained your errors.
You said to me, “Kindly address the two points at the top of this comment if you wish to continue the discussion.”
I replied to you by addressing those points yet again and adding,
“As for you being willing “to continue the discussion” with me,
I enjoy sensible debate with those who disagree with me because I learn nothing from debating with a mirror, but so far your only contribution to this discussion has been to demonstrate you have meagre understanding of the subject. So, I suggest that if you want to learn then read what I have written for you and try to be polite instead of trying to hide your ignorance and bias behind rudeness. I am willing to try to answer any sensible questions and to debate any reasonable points.”
I leave it to others to decide for themselves which of us is “condescending” and which of us knows what we are talking about.
Richard”
Richard
Richard, you make an excellent comment on that fraud who stole my name. My only wish is that you referred to him as the fraudulent ‘Immortal600’ as I am the FIRST and ORIGINAL ‘Immortal600’.
I want to take this opportunity to thank you for all that you do in combating this AGW madness. May God bless you and your family always!
I posted this update on January 15, 2021.
The math part is the same. But I improved the rest of the paper based on how I organized my book Climate Miracle.
Now is your chance to add your review so you can be on my Acknowledgements list.
I plan to submit this for publication on January 18.
A typo (missing “cause”):
“The Equivalence Principle requires human and natural CO2 to behave the same. If natural were to ____ CO2 stick in the atmosphere,”
In section 2.5, in addition to Munshi, Chaamjamal (I presume he is not Jamal Munshi?) also published detrended statistical analysis revealing NO correlation between:
— rate of atmospheric CO2 increase and rate of fossil fuel CO2 emissions;
— ocean CO2 levels and fossil fuel CO2 emissions;
— rate of global warming and rate of CO2 emissions;
— rate of sea level rise and rate of CO2 emissions; and
— rate of Arctic sea ice melt and rate of global warming.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/05/27/spurious/
Loved the entire paper. It presents an entirely logical contradiction of the IPCC CO2 models upon which all of the CAGW alarmist hypothesis is based.
I would like to see somewhat more detailed discussion of the C12/C13 subject as it relates to alarmists’ fallacious use of the differences to identify anthropogenic versus natural sources of CO2.
Salby has a limited discussion of it in this youtube, but his presentation is less than optimal IMHO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1cGqL9y548&feature=youtu.be
I know this is a scientific paper, but I think the non-scientist readers would also benefit from a short discussion of the many natural causes of CO2, since so much of the public has been indoctrinated to believe that industrial emissions are not only the primary source, but the only source of increasing total atmospheric CO2:
https://www.quora.com/Do-volcanoes-produce-more-greenhouse-gases-than-humans/answer/John-Walker-922
https://www.quora.com/How-do-human-CO2-emissions-compare-to-natural-Co2-emissions/answer/John-Walker-922
Dear JD,
Thank you very much for all your comments. I will work on your suggestions tomorrow.
Ed
Dr. Berry,
You say that IPCC’s argument is invalid because it assumes all human CO2 sticks in the atmosphere. I thought they believed only about 50% of human CO2 sticks in the atmosphere which is still invalid?
Dear Stephen,
The IPCC assumes human CO2 stays in the atmosphere much longer than natural CO2. This does not mean that no human CO2 gets out of the atmosphere.
When we sum all human emissions up to a specific year after about 1970, the sum is about two times greater than the increase in CO2 above 280 ppm. So, the IPCC simply says that half of the human CO2 moved out of the atmosphere.
I suppose that is what is confusing in your preprint with the statement, “IPCC’s argument is invalid because it assumes all human CO2 sticks in the atmosphere.” Wouldn’t it be better to say IPCC’s argument is invalid because it treats human CO2 differently than natural CO2? IPCC doesn’t assume all human CO2 sticks in the atmosphere; it assumes about half moves out. It assumes all the natural CO2 moves out of the atmosphere but only about half of the human.
Dear Ed:
Am I glad you came back from politics to science.
While I agree with you that climate Change is not due to manmade factors but to mother nature, whether it is polar vortex, (See: http://www.severe-weather.eu) or solar flares , or volcanic eruptions, (both terrestrial and sub – marine) I am of the belief that since the “manmade hypothesis” is based on GHG (i.e IR spectrum) the whole argument of CO2 being the culprit is wrong.
While I appreciate your derivation of mathematical equations to support your theory of Equivalence principle, I still simply maintain that H2O is the real culprit.
Look, there once was a gay poet who was born in Dublin and died in Paris (Oscar Wilde). He said, and I quote: “With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone”.
While this is true for too many American voters, the exception is Greta Thunberg of Sweden. This high school dropout kid figured out that the game is not whether the climate changes or not, but rather that fame brings riches to its owner of fame.
I tip my hat to her, in spite of my vehement disagreement with her.
As to your book: I recommend you start with the definition of climate, as opposed to weather. Climate is a combination of temperature and precipitation. You might even comment how Global Warming slowly morphed into Climate Change as election day drew near.
Any way, while your theory spins around CO2 as the culprit, I would proceed with the fact that the claim that it’s due to manmade actions (a “fact” which may be true to between 5 and 10%) cannot be proven, and therefore it’s an “extraordinary claim”.
Any way, posting to the real problem is only half the issue. Proposing a solution is the other half. Sequestering CO2 has been proposed in many ways and that’s good. But what is the solution if you believe that H2O is the real culprit?
Here is my theory:
As the world population continues to grow (in spite of COVID 19 pandemic) water shortages around the world are saved by building more and more desalination plants. To save money, the concentrated brine is dumped back into the ocean, in most cases. This causes less evaporation which “translates” to less precipitation.
Solution: spend some money to build evaporation ponds, and ultimately sell the salt to states that need salt to melt snow.
The year 2020, according to NOAA, was the second warmest year since 2016, which was the warmest year. Now, if it is man made and not due to mother nature, 2020 should be warmer than 2016, since the world population grew and the demand for fossil fuels grew also.
I hope my comments prove helpful in spite of any disagreements we may have. My kudos to you and your wife for your efforts.
Sincerely,
Mojesmu
Mojesmu,
Why do you assume there is a problem? Maybe it’s natural variability.
Could be a natural variability.
Dr. Berry,
Elon Musk just announced that he is going to give 100,000,000 to the best carbon capture invention. I think you could win 😉
Dr. Ed,
I think you are right on both counts, Joe biden and his advisors are scientific morons and want to destroy America. Just like Justin Trudeau and his advisors are morons and want to destroy Canada.
Your conclusions are surely correct – but in my eyes primarily for economic reasons. We don´t need to solve all the intricate problems natural scientists are dealing with, because the market provides much better solutions, as far as the decisive matter, POLICY, is concerned.
For two reasons. 1) Things not broken don´t need to be fixed. 2) If broken, the actions to take are definitely NOT the ones suggested by the UN, IPCC, and most western governments. Because the only effective prescription is a GLOBAL climate tax on CO2 emissions, the same (roughly) in all countries.
Kyoto – or Paris agreements only ends up with a REDISTRIBUTION of emissions. No global reductions and therefore no climate impact at all.
A key problem is that even the most respected expert in this field, professor William D Nordhaus, the Nobel laureate rewarded for his writings on climate change, has been silent about this solution. I have personally, as a retired Civil Servant interested in these matters, contacted him about these facts, but he never responded, except for a first polite reply indicating a willingness to consider my questions, but then nothing more.
Let me add that your graph separating human and natural causes is also quite convincing.
But old estimates, derived from statistics or formulas of unknown quality, are more likely to be questioned than very basic price theori. Wellknown terms like demand and supply are shortcuts to insight, while few voters will ever grasp the rules guiding universe.
By combining these two approaches, natural science and economics, end of the intellectual disaster called “climate change” is in sight. The sceptics have contributed to the delay, by making natural science their only weapon, when sharper ones are available, especially in the most relevant field, climate policy.
Dr. Berry,
I’ve read quite a few and have been drilled with quite a few attempts at the discredit of Beck’s excellent work.
One common claim is that the readings weren’t atmospheric but locale and lower to the ground as if that makes any difference seeing how if it was read it existed? I’ve always been suspicious of the current atmospheric stable levels of CO2 claims, since all older papers I’ve read showed a regional seasonal flux that is never shown in the “official volume” which conveniently never lowers as it would on any standard model.
This is a link to one of the crits and I’d imagine a standard template, as I am not a scientist I have no idea how legit the processes claimed in the paper are according to scientific experimentation. I have a hard time believing advanced chemists of the age would make those acclaimed errors.
reference
The graf on page 3, 1820 thru 2020, did they have the technology to read CO2 levels back in 1820, or they looking at core levels in ice.
Ed,
I have a few comments on your preprint. But first, thank you for correcting the mistake you made in your 2019 paper, where you mistakenly took “Delta 14C” to be C14 concentration. And thank you for posting my paper on your blog.
Your Figure 17 summarizes your model. Reading from the curve, you assert that the concentration of a pulse of carbon injected into the atmosphere will fall by about 90% after 20 years. Harde and Salby’s yet to be published paper which you reference make similar predictions. These predictions are testable with carbon 14.
The thing you call “14C ratio” in Section 4.5 is the fractional deviation of the 14C concentration from its value in 1970, in parts per thousand, with the 1970 value forced to about 510 parts per thousand, the value of Delta 14C in that year. Your prescription for calculating that quantity is correct. Yours is perhaps an awkward definition, but never mind. It will give the correct shape of the concentration curve over time.
While you only show the 14C concentration from 1970 on, there is no good reason not to compute C14 concentration all the way back to 1950, or to 1920 as I did in my paper. (I copied you on my recent note to Harde, pointing out that early delta C14 measurements, using specific activity (Becquerels/gm) instead of isotope ratios measured by mass spectrometry, also depend on the 12C concentration at the time of the measurement.)
With your definition, you would find negative but stable values of “14C ratio” between 1920-1950, in the vicinity of -150 parts per thousand. The Delta C14 curve decreases only slightly with time in this period due to the Suess effect, and the “14C ratio” (C14 concentration) is even flatter.
Look at the whole range of 14C concentration data. You can save yourself the trouble of converting the years before 1970 to “14C ratio” by looking at the curve in Figure 2 of my paper, the shape of which agrees with your calculation after 1970, the only place you show calculations of it. (My plot is in ppmv instead of being a fractional deviation. I think ppmv is a more easily understood measure of concentration.)
You see that what you call the “balance level” of 14C concentration around 1995 is about 50% above the quite stable 1920-1950 baseline. In your Figure 17, you predicted that the “bomb pulse” should be almost all the way back to its original baseline after all these years. It is not. In fact, the way that C14 decreased after the “bomb pulse” as displayed in my Figure 2 looks nothing like your Figure 17 plot. My plot is not a model. It is carbon 14 data, properly interpreted. As I said in my paper, the C14 concentration data refute your model.
Harde and Salby try to explain their higher “balance level” (1995 vs 1950) by speculating that cosmic ray fluxes have dramatically increased since 1950. Their model does not fit the data either unless they make such unwarranted hypotheses. Radiocarbon daters indeed need to invoke small variations in atmospheric C14/C12 concentrations over the millennia, to reconcile their time scale with historical dates, but these variations are at the 1% level, not the 50% level.
There is no mystery why the C14 concentration changed the way it did. Bomb testing put a lot of C14 into the atmosphere, not into the ocean or biosphere. This created an isotopic imbalance between the sinks. The rapid decrease of atmospheric C14 concentration in the 1970’s (which you were able to fit with an exponential) was accompanied by a corresponding increase in land and sea C14, as carbon in the different sinks mixed.
That mixing was completed on the time scale that you measured. But the new carbon from the bomb test is not safely sequestered away, as shown by the baseline shift that you, Harde and Salby needed for your fits. It is now added to the cycling carbon. Similarly, the emissions from a gas-guzzling ’55 Chevy moved sequestered fossil fuel carbon into the carbon cycle, raising levels in the atmosphere and oceans in particular, and probably in land sinks as well.
Dear David,
Thank you for your comment.
Your 2020 paper does a very good job of calculating the 14C data from the D14C and CO2 data. As you may recall, when you first introduced this subject in a comment on one of my posts, I agreed that ratios do not flow, only quantities flow. So, your physics is good.
But your 2020 paper does not recognize that I and Harde used 14C data only to derive an upper bound for the 12CO2 e-time. And while it is true that my 2019 paper should have converted D14C data to 14C data, the consequences of this omission turn out to be zero because the 14C e-time is less than the D14C e-time, which strengthens the conclusions of my and Harde’s papers rather than refutes them. You did not calculate the 14C e-time to check this. So, your climate physics was not so good.
If your paper had focused on your 14C calculation rather than as a hyper-focus (invalid) attack on the papers by me and Harde, AGU would have published it. Since I sent a rebuttal to your AGU paper, the AGU editor emailed me that he rejected your paper, and therefore my rebuttal, because you wrote it as a comment on the papers by me and Harde, rather than as an independent article.
As an independent paper separated from its attack on the papers by me and Harde, your paper would have been a valuable and highly referenced paper.
There are few scientific papers that do not have errors. Every time I rewrite my preprint, I find an error. Science, like technology, always moves forward after finding new truth but that does not mean the Wright Brothers’ airplanes were mistakes that negate the value of their flights.
My preprint also updates my review of the Bern model because Tom C. politely showed in his comments that the Bern model coefficients were Green’s function coefficients. Of course, I understand Green’s functions, as do you, but I never found that connection in my review of Bern model papers. So, that may be the most critical error in my 2019 paper, now updated. But it does not negate the value of my 2019 paper because the rest of the paper stands alone.
Regarding your specific items in your comment above:
Yes, your Figure 2 is very good.
Your conclusion that the Suess effect was the cause should be a hypothesis rather than a conclusion.
Your comment on how I calculated my 14C ratio is valid. Remember, we have different goals. Your goal was to properly calculate the 14C data, and you did it well. Meanwhile, my focus was on my preprint #3, where my interest in 14C data is to derive a 14C e-time without adding another figure and more discussion to my already long paper. So, I chose the short way to do it, which you have kindly approved.
My use of the balance level in Figure 19 is merely an easy mathematical way to find the e-time for the 14C data from 1970 to about 1990. It is not necessary that I fit the 14C curve beyond even 1980 because the curve will tend to assume longer e-times as the level moves closer to its equilibrium level, as described in Figure 18.
I agree with your last two paragraphs that describe the physics of the flows. So, we can continue to discuss flows without conflicting our physics.
Finally, your comment, “As I said in my paper, the C14 concentration data refute your model,” is not valid because I have not used my model to make a C14 prediction that can be tested.
In fact, such a test is impossible because we do not know the 14C e-times of all six nodes. We do not know the 14C levels in all four reservoirs. And we do not know what changes may have occurred in the 14C inflows to each reservoir.
If we make assumptions about these unknowns and assume the inflows have not changed since 1950, we could run my model to simulate the 14C pulse beginning 1970. The result might be a curve lying between the 12C and Bern curves in Figure 18.
But the fact that the 14C data seem to be rising after, say, 1980, is not a contradiction of the model. It is a contradiction of our knowledge of 14C inflow.
Ed,
You say that you agree with my last two paragraphs. So evidently you agree with my last sentence: “Similarly, the emissions from a gas guzzling ’55 Chevy moved sequestered fossil fuel carbon into the carbon cycle, raising levels in the atmosphere and oceans in particular, and probably in land sinks as well.” Why then have you been saying for a few years that we humans are not responsible for the atmospheric CO2 increase? If you don’t agree with this last sentence, tell me why C14 added to the atmosphere with bomb tests is still with us, but C12 added by fossil fuel burning is not.
For the third time, read Caldiera, et. al. The 14C data does NOT “contradict our knowledge of 14C inflow.” It confirms a prediction made in 1998, using a conventional carbon cycle model. It is only an anomaly in fringe models such as yours, Harde’s, and Salby’s which are, as you almost admit, contradicted by 14C data.
Dear David,
Human carbon emissions, whether from a 1955 Chevy or from the manufacture and installation of wind turbines, add carbon to the carbon cycle. The issue in this post, however, is how much the human carbon addition has increased the level of atmospheric CO2.
I invite you to defend your sentence:
“The 14C data does NOT ‘contradict our knowledge of 14C inflow.’ It confirms a prediction made in 1998, using a conventional carbon cycle model. It is only an anomaly in fringe models such as yours, Harde’s, and Salby’s which are, as you almost admit, contradicted by 14C data.”
Please describe the important features of the “conventional carbon cycle model” and tell how it differs from the carbon cycle model described in this preprint, which you call a “fringe model.”
Since you apparently still assume the Core Theory is true, please tell us how it can be true given the data plotted in Figure 1.
Ed,
I don’t think it is my responsibility to explain to you the paper: Caldeira, K., Raul, G. H., and Duffy, P. B. “Predicted net efflux of radiocarbon from the ocean and increase in atmospheric radiocarbon content.” Geophysical Research Letters, 25 (20), 3811-3814 (1998). They explain it clearly enough themselves. Here is a link for the convenience of you and your readers: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/1998GL900010
By calling theirs a “conventional model”, I mean that it is a model that acknowledges the dominant human contribution to atmospheric CO2 increases during the last century. It is a model put together by physicists at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, not, as you would like to think, at some liberal think tank or university. As you know LLNL is the premier US nuclear weapons laboratory, and they know a thing or two about modeling fallout from nuclear testing. As you requested, here are some of the differences between the LLNL model and what I will call the BHS (Berry/Harde/Salby) model:
1. The LLNL model (1998) predicted that atmospheric C14 concentration would rise beginning around 2000, because of the ongoing introduction of fossil fuel carbon into the atmosphere. This is not an obvious result since the fossil fuel carbon contains no C14, but the addition of fossil fuel carbon to the atmosphere has consequences that they explain, and which I echoed in my paper. This prediction is verified in recent data. Meanwhile the BHS modelers cannot fit the C14 concentration the same way they did when the authors misinterpreted DeltaC14 as a concentration. Harde and Salby hypothesize an increase in cosmic ray produced C14 to explain the discrepancy, even though the success of C14 dating verifies the stability of C14 production. You talk of unknown C14 inputs, another way of saying your model doesn’t fit the data as it stands either.
2. The LLNL model utilizes conservation of carbon, not counting of course the creation of C14 from N14 neutrons from cosmic rays. BHS does not, and before discovering your Delta14C error, that was the focus of my criticisms. If once sequestered fossil fuel carbon is burned, the carbon released from sequestration must be accounted for somewhere. Harde’s earlier papers considered the oceans to be an infinite sink. If the C14 concentration really behaved like DeltaC14, that would be a defensible position. It is not defensible with his new and correct interpretation of DeltaC14. You have always been vague about where most of the fossil fuel carbon ends up, even while you have been adamant that little has ended up in the atmosphere. I guess you think it mostly goes into the ocean, at the same time that “natural carbon” is moving from the oceans to the atmosphere. It appears to me that it is your model, not the IPCC model, that violates what you call the equivalence principle!
3. The LLNL model was published in Geophysical Research Letters, a peer reviewed journal. The BHS model was published by (or submitted to) Science Publishing Group, known to put out “predatory”, “pay to self-publish” articles without rigorous peer review. The original DeltaC14 error would never have gotten through a peer review process. I would not be the only one criticizing the earlier papers had they been published in more visible journals.
In defense of you, Harde, and Essenhigh, I think the C14 community was negligent to allow misleading graphs of DeltaC14 to be a proxy for C14 concentration, a practice that continues. I may send my paper to their journal Radiocarbon and ask how they think this issue should be addressed, perhaps as a letter or comment in that journal.
Let me now address your assertion that your Figure 1, which plots the history of carbon emissions along with the history of atmospheric CO2 concentration, somehow negates the idea that those emissions are the cause of the atmospheric CO2 increase. The two curves are strongly correlated, but not identical, and I suppose that is your point. The fact that in recent decades more carbon has been emitted than remains in the atmosphere is part of every competent model. The increase in carbon in the oceans, making them more acidic, is established. The IPCC has also documented an increase in land carbon, as the higher atmospheric CO2 concentration stimulates some forest growth. I don’t know for sure, but I would guess that CO2 concentration increasing faster than emissions early in the 20th century is related to land use changes. I do not believe that CO2 created by burning down a forest to make room for agriculture would be counted as human emissions in your plot. If I have correctly understood your point about Figure 1, it is similar to one Salby has talked about elsewhere: the lack of “detrended correlations” between CO2 concentrations and emissions. That Salby claims to reach a statistical conclusion on this point is remarkable, since nowhere does he consider data uncertainties! Surely he knows much more about atmospheric science than I do, but he does not appear to be experienced in handling data.
I hope I have answered your questions. Now I have one for you. You assert that Harde and Salby’s unpublished paper “prove Andrews wrong.” Can you be more specific? It has taken nearly a year, but I am glad we now agree that I was correct on the DeltaC14 definition. I don’t know where you think I am wrong now.
Dear David,
You have not explained Figure 1 because IPCC’s estimates of carbon emissions from land-use are too small to have significantly changed the data used to plot Figure 1.
You wrote, “You have always been vague about where most of the fossil fuel carbon ends up, even while you have been adamant that little has ended up in the atmosphere.”
– Your claim is preposterous because Preprint #3 fully describes the flow of human carbon, which neither Caldeira et al. nor LLL have done.
Caldeira et al. is invalid because their model incorrectly assumes the Core Theory is true, a fact you acknowledge when you say their model “acknowledges the dominant human contribution to atmospheric CO2 increases during the last century.”
The Caldeira-LLL 14C model does not have or use a valid human carbon cycle model. LLL made a serious scientific error when it assumed the Core Theory is true.
The LLL model predicted that 14C would increase around 2000, but a valid prediction is not evidence that the model is valid because other possible causes have not been eliminated.
Caldeira et al. say this increase will happen because “fossil‐fuel carbon diminishes the net flux of 14C from the atmosphere to the oceans and land biosphere, forcing 14C to accumulate in the atmosphere.”
– But they present no evidence or even physics to support that conclusion.
– Figure 17 shows how a pulse of 14C in the atmosphere would flow to the land and oceans, according to IPCC 12C data.
– The conclusion that human carbon “diminishes the net flux of 14C” means the LLL model includes invalid assumptions.
You say the LLL model conserves carbon. Preprint #3’s carbon cycle model conserves carbon.
Caldeira et al. do not describe their model, except to say it comes from:
Hesshaimer, V., M. Heimann, and I. Levin, Radiocarbon evidence for a smaller oceanic carbon dioxide sink than previously believed, Nature, 370, 201-203, 1994.
The Hesshaimer et al. paper does not describe their model and they openly admit they had to make adjustments to curve fit the data.
By contrast, the Physics carbon cycle model is the only model that replicates IPCC’s natural carbon cycle data. Then it uses IPCC’s natural carbon cycle data to prove IPCC’s human carbon cycle is a fraud.
Your attempt to claim the LLL model done two decades ago shows the Physics carbon cycle model is incorrect fails data and logic.
You wrote, “The increase in carbon in the oceans, making them more acidic, is established. The IPCC has also documented an increase in land carbon, as the higher atmospheric CO2 concentration stimulates some forest growth.” – Preprint #3 fully explains these observations that are consistent with the physics carbon cycle model.
Your “authority” arguments that refer to LLL and journals are invalid. All arguments in this discussion must be logical scientific arguments.
Your criticism that the Physics carbon cycle model does not model the 14C carbon cycle is a strawman. I have not modeled the 14C carbon cycle.
In summary, you have not shown there is an error in the Physics carbon cycle model. And we are long past your D14C argument that has no relevance to Preprint #3.
(I do not represent the Harde-Salby model. You will have to address that issue with them when they publish their paper or its preprint.)
(Note: To organize this discussion, I bolded Dave’s sentences that are relevant. – Ed)
Ed,
The Lawrence Livermore National Lab paper did not assume that human activities caused CO2 to increase. That conclusion followed from the data.
For you to suggest that any argument which contradicts your theory is invalid, simply because it contradicts your theory, would imply that your field is religion, not science.
Every scientist I have ever met (myself included) takes very seriously a model with demonstrated predictive ability.
The LLNL model passes that test, making a non-trivial prediction verified by measurements.
Every scientist I have ever met asks those whose theories DON’T fit the data “What modifications can you make to fix that?”
Your present model of C12 transport was, I believe, motivated by your wrong interpretation of DeltaC14. (You may argue that point if you wish, but you once called your WRONG graph of C14 concentration after the bomb tests “the most important graph in climate science.”)
As far as I know, you made no modifications to your model after I pointed out your mistake, you just avoided mentioning C14. Therefore it is no surprise at all that when your model is applied to C14, IT DOES NOT FIT THE DATA.
What are you going to do about that Ed? You distance yourself from Harde, whose solution to the same difficulty was to invoke increased C14 production from cosmic rays. Your response so far has been “unknown C14 inputs.” You pay lip service to Feynman’s dictum: “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is. It doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s WRONG.” Apply that dictum here.
The contest is not between your model and the LLNL model. It is between your model and DATA.
You forgot to tell me how the Harde and Salby draft paper, which Science Publishing Group tell me has yet to be submitted to Earth Sciences, proves my paper wrong.
Dear Dave,
Sorry, I had to bold some of your sentences in your comment above to identify the parts of your comment that were worth a reply.
You claim the LLL paper determined from data that human CO2 caused all the CO2 increase (above 280 ppm). PROVE IT!
You claim “The LLNL model passes that test, making a non-trivial prediction verified by measurements.” – You have reversed the scientific method by claiming a good prediction verifies a model.
You think my Physics model was “motivated by [my] wrong interpretation of DeltaC14.” If you could understand my (2019) paper and my Preprint #3, you would see that my derivation of the Physics model stands alone and has nothing to do with 14C or D14C data.
You say, “As far as I know, you made no modifications to your model after I pointed out your mistake, you just avoided mentioning C14.” This proves you do not understand Preprint #3, which is a very significant advance over my (2019) paper.
You say, “The contest is not between your model and the LLNL model. It is between your model and DATA.” No, the contest is between the LLL model and data.
Please show, in your next comment, how the LLL model uses data that show human CO2 caused all the CO2 increase above 280 ppm.
Also, please show how the LLL model replicates the IPCC natural carbon cycle data.
(And to answer your last question, the reason your paper is wrong is that it makes incorrect conclusions about my and Harde’s papers. These incorrect conclusions destroyed the value of your paper.)
Ed,
Nice try, but I will not be distracted by your highlighted requests for discussion of side topics. There is one and only one issue on the table that you failed to highlight and which you continually duck. That is the issue of the clear conflict between your model and the behavior of atmospheric carbon 14 concentration after the bomb tests. That is the issue which I asserted in my paper refutes your model, and I stand by that claim. The question is: is your model salvageable? I think it is not. Ralph Alexander says basically the same thing in his Oct 19, 2020 post on his scienceunderattack blog.
I will accept, with considerable skepticism, your assertion that misinterpreted C14 data did not motivate your model. But however you arrived at it, you certainly did proudly show that your model nicely fit the misinterpreted C14 data, and was strong evidence in favor of it. That is why it should be no surprise to you that your model does not fit correctly interpreted data with substantially different features. When the data changes, whether in reality or because of a correction, models which previously fit the data must change or be discarded. Your challenge is not just to explain the small uptick in C14 after about 2000. You must also explain the higher “balance level” in your new fit. Where did all that C14 come from if carbon from whatever source is removed from the atmosphere on a time scale of a decade or two? Harde’s answer is maybe more cosmic rays. What is yours? (Interestingly, the current issue of Science discusses an event about 42,000 years ago during which the earth’s magnetic field reversed. While that was happening and the field was weak for a while, the earth was not so well protected from cosmic rays, and there was a temporary spike in C14 production. Maybe you can argue that is what is happening now.)
Dear David,
Correction: The issue under discussion in this post is whether Preprint #3 is correct in its conclusion that the Core Theory is false. You have provided NO evidence that the Core Theory is true.
You wish to test the Physics carbon cycle model with 14C data. Such a test must assume a 14C pulse is added to the atmosphere in 1970, and the natural 14C level, inflow, and outflow all stay constant at their pre-1950 level and flows after 1970 and there are no other inflows. Your desired model test is impossible because you cannot guarantee that these assumptions are valid.
You claim the observed increase in the 14C level after 1970 proves the Physics model is incorrect. Indeed, under the above assumptions, the Physics model would not predict this 14C increase, nor would any acceptable model. This would not be a test of the Physics model. This would be a test of your assumptions.
You claim the LLL model predicted the increase based upon the theory that human CO2 somehow jammed up the outflow whereby 14CO2 escapes from the atmosphere. Sorry, that irrational explanation does not fly.
Therefore, you are not talking about a test of the Physics model. You are talking about a test of the above theory that you cannot explain.
You claim the LLL model is valid when it (a) cannot simulate IPCC’s natural carbon cycle and (b) assumes the Core Theory is true.
In your previous comment, you claimed the LLL paper shows data that prove the Core Theory is correct. But now, you refuse to show such data. Why?
So, you lied! There are no such data. If there were such data, the IPCC would use the data to support its Core Theory but it has not.
I reject your opinions of my “motives” in developing my Physics model. No wonder you can’t do climate physics. You can’t focus on physics.
I reject your referrals to opinions of people who will not put their opinions in a comment in this post. Your referrals show you lack confidence in your climate physics and you need emotional support for your opinion. After all, you did blow your climate physics in your paper.
You want me to explain the observed increase in the 14C level after 1970, but even you cannot explain it.
In summary, you so dearly believe the Core Theory is true even though you cannot produce any data or present any valid argument to support your belief. That, David, is called religion, not science.
I assume people are pointing to the above ground atomic weapons tests as a source of C14.
I also assume people think there were no more above ground atomic weapons detonated in the atmosphere, since 1970.
But, what if I were to report there were more atmospheric detonations of atomic weapons, since that year? Would such detonations effect the C14 data people are using in attempting to track the reduction of atmospheric C14 levels?
Has anyone calculated the amount of C14 created by a single device, of any specific yield?
No need to puzzle about C14 levels not being predictable, or increasing, as it seems your data does not include all the input sources.
Ed,
I will choose a religion that explains data and anticipates trends, over one that is falsified by data, every time. The LLNL group did not need to make a lot of assumptions about C14 sources to explain the data. They simply assumed C14 production by cosmic rays since 1960 was unchanged from what it had been the last 1000 years, and that isotopic ratios in the various sinks were identical, before the bomb tests put C14 in the atmosphere. It is yours, Harde, and Salby’s models that cannot fit the data without making a lot of unjustified assumptions about changing C14 sources. I take your comments above as acknowledging that fact. The LLNL model wins by Occam’s razor.
Of course, C14 is only about a trillionth of the atmospheric carbon. What we really care about is what it says about the fate of fossil fuel generated C12. The initial rapid change in atmospheric DeltaC14 and in C14 concentration after the bomb tests was caused by the initial isotopic imbalance between atmospheric and land and sea carbon. We do not expect C12 concentrations to track C14 concentrations during that period, which has a time scale some call the “residence time”. But after a couple of residence times when the bomb carbon and the carbon cycle carbon are thoroughly mixed, the only difference in C14 and C12 behavior are the small fractionation differences. (As you note, lighter C12 diffuses a little more quickly than C12. Those differences are in the LLNL model.) Thus the situation AFTER about 1990 is key in telling you what has become of carbon injected into the atmosphere much earlier. A model that gets C14 wrong in that period certainly gets C12 wrong.
But I fear our posts are getting repetitious, and I will sign off with this one, and go enjoy a nice spring day.
Best regards,
Dave
Dear Reader,
Now, it is up to you to review the arguments presented by Dave and my replies.
Has Dave presented any argument that makes you believe the Core Theory is true?
Has Dave presented any argument that makes you believe the conclusions of Preprint #3 are incorrect?
In the next few weeks, we will review how Dave’s arguments reject physics and logic.
Here is a start:
Dave cannot find any fault in Preprint #3. So, he argues that another theory is true, namely, that somehow human CO2 emissions jammed up the outflow of 14C from the atmosphere, causing more 14C to accumulate in the atmosphere.
Of course, if that happened, it would also slow the outflow of natural and human 12CO2. Reference [31] says that did not happen.
Dave misses these key points:
(a) you cannot prove a theory is wrong by proposing another theory,
(b) Dave’s theory has no replacement for the Physics model hypothesis (2),
(c) Dave’s theory is not a real theory because it cannot make a prediction that can be falsified,
(d) Dave’s theory violates physics because it assumes the Core Theory is true, and
(e) Dave’s theory assumes human CO2, but not variations in natural CO2, blocks the outflow of 14C.
Dave has a Ph.D. in physics and is an expert climate alarmist. So, Dave has proved that climate alarmism is a scientific scam.
Ed
Dr. Ed,
The one hypothesis that the entire model rests on: “outflow is proportional to level” (2) on page 9/10 … are you sure it’s true? Is it a fundamental law in physics that applies to all systems where something is flowing in and out of reservoirs?
I’d be grateful if you gave me a reference that supports this hypothesis.
Thanks a lot
Dear Renate,
You are correct, my hypothesis (2) is the basis of my model, as I state. This is the same hypothesis IPCC uses for its natural carbon cycle model. IPCC’s “turnover time” is the same as my Te. My model using (2) exactly replicates IPCC’s natural carbon cycle data.
What are the alternatives? IPCC offers none. There are no data that support any other hypothesis. Until there are data to support that outflow is some nonlinear function of level, then we should use the simplest hypothesis, which is (2).
The units of outflow are mass / time, which in the model translates to level / time, which supports (2).
Pharmacology models use (2) because chemical reactions are linear functions of level. Dalton’s law of partial pressures is linear.
In addition, suppose outflow is a nonlinear function of level that we do not know. Then it is still proper to use the linear function in models because a nonlinear function will be near “linear” when the level is near its balance level. Human CO2 has added only about one percent to the carbon in the carbon cycle, meaning human carbon will not change the linear behavior of IPCC’s carbon cycle.
Most important is that the IPCC uses the linear model and I use IPCC’s own data to prove my point. In other words, I do not need to do the research to prove outflow is linear. That is IPCC’s job. My job is only to show that IPCC’s linear natural carbon cycle data prove IPCC’s claimed human carbon cycle is wrong.
Dear Dr. Ed,
thanks a lot for the reply! I understand your approach. You were more concerned in proving the IPCC wrong than in discovering the truth. That’s fine.
Assuming that the hypothesis is true, it’s clear that one of the the conclusions – the IPCC’s or yours – must be wrong because they are very different. But what if the hypothesis isn’t true? Then both conclusions may be wrong. Do you agree?
I found a hint that the hypothesis is NOT a universal law in physics. Here’s a counter-example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torricelli%27s_law
In this circumstance, the outflow is proportional to the square root of the level (provided that the tank holding the fluid has a constant cross-section). The speed at which the fluid escapes may be expressed in the unit [mass/time] which translates to [level/time], so the consideration of the units you gave does neither support nor reject the hypothesis.
What do you think about the hypothesis now after learning about a counter-example? Should the IPCC consider a different relationship between flow and level?
Dear Renate,
First, there are many examples in physics where outflow is not linear in level. Torricelli’s well-known law is only one of them. It is based on the transfer of potential energy (mgh) into kinetic energy (1/2 mv^2). Also, irrigation engineers design weirs to produce a desired relationship of outflow to level. But these are not chemical reactions or reactions that transfer molecules between states, like from vapor to liquid. So, these examples are unrelated to our subject.
Second, and most important, is your comment: “You were more concerned in proving the IPCC wrong than in discovering the truth.”
The philosophy of science says the way we learn truth is to prove a hypothesis is wrong. So, my proof that the IPCC human carbon cycle is wrong is a discovery of the truth. When we prove a hypothesis is wrong, we identify what is fiction. Then the truth is lies outside that fiction.
My paper shows that IPCC’s human carbon cycle does not use the same physics as IPCC’s natural carbon cycle. IPCC’s natural carbon cycle is based on data but IPCC’s human carbon cycle is based only on the (incorrect) assumption that human CO2 has caused all the increase in atmospheric CO2. Therefore, we must reject IPCC’s human carbon cycle.
Torricelli’s law will not to replicate IPCC’s natural carbon cycle, so we must reject Torricelli’s law for this application. But suppose it did. Then, we would still find that IPCC’s human carbon cycle uses different physics that its natural carbon cycle.
If we follow the scientific method, we must reject IPCC’s human carbon cycle. If anyone wishes to support IPCC’s human carbon cycle, the only way is to postulate another hypothesis that replicates the data in IPCC’s natural carbon cycle, and then recalculate the new IPCC human carbon cycle. No one has done this. So there is no alternative hypothesis to test.
Therefore, your argument does not prove my paper is wrong.
Dear Ed,
You say “my hypothesis (2) is the basis of my model, as I state. This is the same hypothesis IPCC uses for its natural carbon cycle model. IPCC’s ‘turnover time’ is the same as my Te.”
However, the IPCC does not specify the dependence of outflow versus level. They only specify a single point: outflow at the current level. Graphically, this looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/iWihyWd.png . The turnover time is just the outflow divided by the level, regardless of the full dependence — it is specified by a single point.
Now, there are an infinite number of possible functions for outflow versus level that go through this point. Again, graphically, here are a few examples: https://i.imgur.com/x5ALleW.png . You have chosen to make outflow proportional to level, which is the red curve. This is the simplest choice, and Occam’s razor is often useful, but there is no good reason to believe the oceanic carbon cycle follows the simplest possible dynamics.
You also say this: “In addition, suppose outflow is a nonlinear function of level that we do not know. Then it is still proper to use the linear function in models because a nonlinear function will be near “linear” when the level is near its balance level.”
I agree that it is right to approximate the full outflow v level dependence with a linear function. This is equivalent to approximating the full function by its derivative, as shown by the green lines here: https://i.imgur.com/topmI0O.png . But there are still an infinite number of choices, and your choice of the red line is arbitrary.
To summarize: you say that you have shown that the IPCC’s carbon cycle model can’t explain the CO2 rise. But really, you have only shown that the “red curve” model can’t explain the CO2 rise. The IPCC numbers you used specify the one starred point, but the IPCC never endorsed the red curve model. In fact, other papers cited by the IPCC specifically calculate a different dependence — see, for example, the Revelle factor.
Dear Tim,
The IPCC does specify the dependence of outflow on level. IPCC [2, p 948] defines turnover time:
“Turnover time (T) is the ratio of the mass M of a reservoir (e.g., a gaseous compound in the atmosphere) and the total rate of removal S from the reservoir: T = M / S. For each removal process, separate turnover times can be defined.”
The IPCC further says T for atmospheric CO2 is about 4 years, which itself rejects the core theory and IPCCs human carbon cycle.
Nowhere does the IPCC present a nonlinear outflow with respect to level. Since Te is the same as T, Preprint #3 uses the same hypothesis (2) that IPCC uses. To reject hypothesis (2), we need data. There is no such data.
IPCC’s Figure 6.1 adds levels and flows for natural and human carbon cycles. Such an addition requires that outflows are directly proportional to levels.
So, yes, the IPCC uses linear e-times or turnover times.
Preprint #3 uses the six linear Te’s found in IPCC’s natural carbon cycle data to calculate a “true” human carbon cycle. This “true” human carbon cycle is not compatible with IPCC’s human carbon cycle. Therefore, IPCC’s human carbon cycle and the core theory are wrong because they contradict IPCC’s natural carbon cycle.
The Revelle effect does not save the core theory. To save the core theory, it will take a whole new hypothesis for how outflows depend on levels. Such a hypothesis does not exist.
Human carbon emissions have added only one percent to the carbon in the natural carbon cycle, and IPCC’s human carbon effect began way back when total human carbon was very small.
So, can you propose a substitute for (2) that can explain how IPCC’s natural carbon cycle, human carbon cycle, and core theory can be true?
So now that Tim C has explained what I attempted to explain to you in a different manner, do you understand it yet?
[This “Immortal600” is using a dynamic IP address based in Austin, Texas. – Ed]
Dear (fake) Immortal600:
You should know what my reply to Tim C’s comment would be. It is very simple.
The problem is that I am very busy with updating my website software and with publishing my paper.
Tim C is rational. You are not. So, don’t try to associate your comments with Tim C’s comment.
You are a loser. Using my moniker to mask your insecurities is there for the world to see.
[This “Immortal600” is using a static IP address based in Delaware. – Ed]
Ed,
You continually misrepresent the IPCC position. Yes, they do define a turnover time. But they repeatedly warn against simple models, such as yours, which assign simple one time constant descriptions of carbon exchange between reservoirs. As you are well aware but refuse to admit, such models are contradicted by the C14 bomb pulse data. EVERY ONE OF THE SMALL COHORT OF AUTHORS WHO CONCLUDED THAT THE HUMAN CONTRIBUTION TO ATMOSPHERIC CO2 WAS SMALL (YOU, HARDE, ESSENHIGH) GOT ON THE WRONG TRACK BY NOT KNOWING THE DEFINTION OF “DELTAC14”. You yourself called your misinterpreted C14 bomb pulse plot “the most important plot in climate physics.” It was not the most important plot on climate physics. It was a mistake. Scientists make mistakes. But you turned your mistake into an outright lie, showing us all that you are no scientist.
Dear David,
The issue is the IPCC core theory that says human CO2 emissions are the primary cause of the increase in atmospheric CO2. Preprint #3 proves this IPCC core theory is false.
But you continue to believe the core theory is true. So, you attack those who disagree with your incorrect position on climate.
No, I did not call a “misinterpreted 14C” plot “the most important plot in climate physics.” I called the D14C plot “the most important plot in climate physics” because D14C moves back to its original zero value with a constant e-time of 16.5 years.
Your paper does an elementary calculation. It multiplies D14C data by 12C data to plot the 14C curve. Big deal. You should have stayed with that part and taken your bows. You could have done a separate publication, but you made your publication an attack on the scientists that you hate.
You could have mentioned that many papers, on both sides, loosely call D14C data “14C” data, and you would have been correct. But you concluded this language error invalidated the conclusions of these papers, which is incorrect. You did not follow the logic in these papers.
Your publication did not unwind any proof that the core theory is wrong, as you think it does. So, in net, your paper produced more errors than you resolved.
Your plot of the 14C data has nothing to do with the Preprint #3 proof.
Your 14C plot shows 14CO2 has an e-time of about 10 years which clearly supports the Preprint #3 proof that the IPCC core theory is wrong. You don’t get that connection. You don’t get climate physics.
You missed the point Preprint #3 makes that the D14C data show the increase in atmospheric CO2 is dominated by a source that has its D14C ratio near zero, which suggests the primary source of the CO2 increase is the ocean (or nature) and not human CO2 emissions.
Your comment misinterprets IPCC’s position about the natural carbon cycle and you present NO evidence to support your incorrect positions on climate physics.
The IPCC does not “warn against simple models” like mine, meaning the outflows are linear functions of their levels. IPCC’s Bern model is based on an outflow that is linear with level. The Bern model differs from my physics model, so far as is evident, only in its Te values.
IPCC’s natural carbon cycle uses outflows linear with levels. Nowhere does the IPCC use a complex nonlinear relationship for its natural carbon cycle model.
Please use facts in your future arguments rather than using your grandiose, handwaving, numberless, invalid arguments.
Ed,
Here is a simplified IPCC statement about carbon exchange, from your reference 1, p 540:
“Carbon dioxide (CO2), after it is emitted into the atmosphere, is firstly rapidly distributed between atmosphere, the upper ocean and vegetation. Subsequently, the carbon continues to be moved between the different reservoirs of the global carbon cycle, such as soils, the deeper ocean and rocks. Some of these exchanges occur very slowly. Depending on the amount of CO2 released, between 15% and 40% will remain in the atmosphere for up to 2000 years, after which a new balance is established between the atmosphere, the land biosphere and the ocean. Geological processes will take anywhere from tens to hundreds of thousands of years—perhaps longer—to redistribute the carbon further among the geological reservoirs. Higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and associated climate impacts of present emissions, will, therefore, persist for a very long time into the future.”
Your model is nothing like the IPCC model described above. You talk only about what IPCC calls “the rapid part”, as if it were the only thing happening. You muddle together fast processes and slow ones. In your model, for example, the rate at which carbon moves from “land” to “atmosphere” [F12] depends on how much carbon is in a coal seam deep underground [a component of L1], effectively isolated from the atmosphere. Does that make sense to you? It doesn’t to me, nor to the IPCC. But forget about arguing with your critics whether flow is proportional to level. The problems with your model are deeper as discussed below.
Even if we do assume linear dependence between flow and level, let us be clear that there is nothing unphysical about multiple time constants describing the flow between two sinks. You have made wrong statements about this point elsewhere. Those statements may stem from Harde’s 2019 paper (your Ref 38), Section 5.5. Harde writes: “Oceans and continents consist of an endless number of sources and sinks for CO2 which act [in] parallel”. Harde is correct when he goes on to argue that PARALLEL paths between sinks combine to produce one effective time constant. But he is dead wrong that all exchanges between sinks are in parallel. It is easy to think of a counter example: Let sink 1 be the atmosphere and sink 2 the ocean and its contents. Imagine a pulse of CO2 is put into the atmosphere, increasing the atmospheric “level”. Here it makes sense that this will increase the flow of carbon to the surface ocean, perhaps linearly, raising its level in seawater until a new balance is reached. Your model and the IPCC agree that this happens quickly, on a several year time scale. In the meantime, suppose that there is another much slower process that removes carbon from seawater, say the growth of clam shells, which is perhaps stimulated by higher carbon levels. If this process is slow, the initial partial absorption of the CO2 pulse by seawater will hardly be affected. But over time, as carbonic acid is turned into clam shells, the seawater carbon level will fall, upsetting the balance and causing the atmospheric carbon level to also fall. So after a pulse of new CO2 into the atmosphere, the atmospheric CO2 concentration will fall rapidly until it equilibrates with the rising ocean concentration, then more slowly at a rate dependent on clam biology. The reason the curve is not a simple exponential with one time constant is that the physical processes are now in SERIES rather than parallel. Ironically, Harde attempts to use the bomb pulse carbon 14 curve to validate his insistence on parallel paths and a single time constant! He does not yet realize that “Delta C14” is NOT concentration. While “DeltaC14” did follow a simple exponential following the bomb tests, C14 concentration most certainly did not. Don’t worry too much about the radiation doses we are getting, but a substantial portion of the bomb fallout is still with us.
I note that you do have one serial process in your model: the transfer of anthropogenic carbon from the atmosphere to the surface ocean, and then to the deep ocean. But your model remains far too simple, and to say that it “proves the IPCC wrong” is laughable.
Dear David,
Thank you for your reply because it shows at least one place where you are all mixed up. You are trying to add the slow domain to the fast domain. When we use IPCC Figure 6.1, we are using only the fast domain. The slow domain does not change the conclusions we draw from the fast domain. Read what the IPCC says.
Here are the relevant quotes from the IPCC: (I bolded the more important sentences.)
IPCC (2013, p 470) introduces IPCC’s carbon cycles:
“Atmospheric CO2 represents the main atmospheric phase of the global carbon cycle. The global carbon cycle can be viewed as a series of reservoirs of carbon in the Earth System, which are connected by exchange fluxes of carbon. Conceptually, one can distinguish two domains in the global carbon cycle. The first is a fast domain with large exchange fluxes and relatively ‘rapid’ reservoir turnovers, which consists of carbon in the atmosphere, the ocean, surface ocean sediments and on land in vegetation, soils and freshwaters.
“Reservoir turnover times, defined as reservoir mass of carbon divided by the exchange flux, range from a few years for the atmosphere to decades to millennia for the major carbon reservoirs of the land vegetation and soil and the various domains in the ocean.”
IPCC’s statement applies to its Figure 6.1. The reference to “turnover times” clarifies that the IPCC intends that outflows are directly proportional to the reservoir levels and that these data include IPCC’s biogeochemical processes for the carbon cycle.
IPCC (2013, p 470) says of IPCC’s Figure 6.1:
“A schematic of the global carbon cycle with focus on the fast domain is shown in Figure 6.1. The numbers represent the estimated current pool sizes in PgC and the magnitude of the different exchange fluxes in PgC/year averaged over the time-period 2000-2009.”
Therefore, I am not only justified in applying the turnover time to my modeling of IPCC’s fast domain carbon cycles, I am required to do so in order to properly interpret IPCC’s data.
So you are standing by your model’s assertion that a kg of carbon in a buried coal seam effects the exchange of carbon between “land” and “atmosphere” as much as a kg of carbon in leaves?
Dear David,
That is not exactly what my model asserts. My model asserts two things in this regard:
1. Human carbon derived from carbon fuels adds new carbon to the fast carbon cycle. (More precisely, it moves carbon from the slow carbon cycle to the fast carbon cycle.) My model keeps track of this added carbon. As of 2020, human carbon has added about one percent to the carbon in the fast carbon cycle.
2. Once this new carbon is added to the fast carbon cycle, it behaves physically and chemically exactly like all the other carbon in the fast carbon cycle.
What does it matter if a Human burns a lump of coal, or a Volcano belches CO2 drawn from the Earth’s depths? Both are “new” carbon and utterly meaningless in regard to CO2 having climatic effects.
No matter the “newness” or “oldness” of any CO2 source, CO2 does not drive our Climate in ANY meaningful sense, and is basically MOOT.
When the entire Human Race can vanish, taking with them their entire CO2 production, and the Climate remain exactly the same…having removed their 18 ppm of CO2 annual contribution…the entire argument for “Man Made Global Warming” becomes comedy.
Dear Ision,
While your general conclusion is correct for public consumption, there is a need for scientists like me to address the formal structure of IPCC’s climate claims. Therefore, when I am responding to professional scientists like Dave, I must use the physical formalities and definitions that IPCC uses.
The IPCC divides the overall carbon cycle into two parts, the fast cycle, and the slow cycle. Actually, it makes sense to do this because it does approximate reality.
The bottom line of my preprint is that it uses IPCC’s data to prove human carbon emissions do not cause all the increase in atmospheric CO2. That is the breakthrough that people like you need to make scientifically sound arguments in your public debates.
I do not mean to put you out of work, nor to demean your efforts to address the issue in kind with those attempting to defraud the public, and manipulate government action, via deliberate and carefully considered lies.
I do not need to address these lies in terms only experts may fathom, as it is my experience this is completely pointless. After all, your own experience attempting to explain the scientific realities of the topic, and to point out the inaccuracies and contradictions to alarmists, in great detail, has not resulted in their conversion…but an ever higher and hardening wall to keep out contrary data, complete with same being erased from memory, as never existing. They shall reset their intellects, then make the exact corrupt posits again and again, ad infinitum. As these people believe for emotional reasons…and not Rational…else, they are deliberate manipulators.
Debates require at least two parties defaulting to Reason, and strict mutual honesty, in order to be of any merit…and I have found both Reason, and Honesty, lacking in public exchanges with Climate Alarmists.
I only seriously address the lay public, who lack in depth scientific understanding, but yet are rational and not seriously emotionally conditioned. Others, I just slam…hard.
I love what you do and I am grateful for your efforts. But, all the BS stops immediately, when it is pointed out that Man’s 18 ppm of CO2 is meaningless to our Climate…and ALL the facts demonstrate this. Let alone the total absurdity of attempting to REMOVE CO2 from the atmosphere.
Ision,
You give me nothing to argue about since you state your beliefs without any evidence. I am a physicist but not a long-time climate scientist. I started reading the work of climate skeptics a few years ago to see if there was anything there. I agree with some skeptics that a few “alarmists” may well be overstating the certainty and/or magnitude of the problem. For example, I do not think our species will go extinct any time soon. But I find no holes in the consensus scientific argument that we have a problem that needs to be addressed with some urgency, before it becomes even more urgent.
I deplore the fact that a scientific question has become, in the US at least, a partisan issue. We should be arguing what to do about climate change from our differing political viewpoints, instead of arguing whether there is a problem. I fear that because the Republican party has been duped by the likes of Ed Berry and others on this issue, there has been insufficient attention paid to creating incentives for private industry to address the problem. Entrepreneurs with ideas about removing CO2 from the atmosphere, for example, are having trouble raising capital since there is no profit in that without a carbon tax. You can’t complain about the Green New Deal if you don’t propose something else.
In the process of reading and sometimes debunking skeptics, I have become an expert on their culture. Their logic usually goes as follows:
1. It is not getting any warmer. The “alarmists” fudged the 19th century temperature data to make it seem like it is.
2. But if it is getting warmer, it is a temporary trend, soon to be followed by a cooling period. It has nothing to do with CO2. CO2 increases will not affect climate.
3. But if warming does have to do with CO2, there is nothing we can do, because the CO2 increase is not from human activity. It is naturally caused.
You are at stage 2. Ed is at stage 3. I think Ed is right that his blog is the place to discuss the causes of CO2 growth, not the effects of CO2 growth. But if you want to make your case, do it.
David,
So, what do you needs to be “proven” to you? The obvious? What “case” needs to be put forth, so you may comprehend what I have stated in my comment?
You need to be shown that CO2 produced by a lump of coal, is the equivalent of the CO2 burped up from volcanic activity…and visa-versa? Both add sequestered CO2 to the atmosphere, neither being more, or less, significant than the other in regards to climate alteration.
You need me to make a “case” demonstrating that reducing atmospheric CO2 by 18 ppm, from its current level, would result in no significant change to Earth’s climate? This is quite easy, since you and I have both lived on this planet when the average CO2 content was, not only 18 ppm less…but even lower.
But, we are not talking of removing the ENTIRE Human contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere, but a just a fraction of the total18 ppm involved. If the removal of 18 ppm is moot, so too…is the removal of any smaller percentage.
You are merely a propagandist, invested with political interests, who plays the confusion game, and has a long history of doing so.
I love CO2 and think we should not care a bit about creating it, as this trace gas does not drive the climate, is great for plants and plankton…and life.
Dear Ision,
David Anderson’s reply to you supports your contention. He begins with,
“You give me nothing to argue about since you state your beliefs without any evidence,”
which is exactly how David does climate science.
David “believes” without any evidence that human CO2 has caused all the increase in atmospheric CO2.
You described Dave’s response when you wrote:
“They shall reset their intellects, then make the exact corrupt posits again and again, ad infinitum. As these people believe for emotional reasons…and not Rational…else, they are deliberate manipulators.”
Dave does not understand that preprint Figure 1, which is pure data, proves his belief is wrong.
He does not understand that an atmospheric CO2 turnover time of 4 years proves the core theory is wrong.
He does not understand that the core theory violates the Equivalence Principle of climate physics. He just believes.
As you wrote:
“Debates require at least two parties defaulting to Reason, and strict mutual honesty, in order to be of any merit…and I have found both Reason and Honesty lacking in public exchanges with Climate Alarmists.”
Ed,
Let us talk about your model, the so-called “proof” that the IPCC has it wrong.
Your model says that “land carbon” has INCREASED by 150 Pg’s since the beginning of the industrial age. That is where you say a large fraction of the burned fossil fuel carbon has gone, instead of to the atmosphere. That is a lot. If it were in vegetation, it would mean that there had been a 20-30% increase in vegetation since Lewis and Clark ventured west. From Fig 6.1 of your reference 1, from which you got the data to compute the six time constants in your model, the best estimate is that carbon in vegetation has DECREASED by about 30 Pg’s. But it gets much worse for you. Since you have to postulate volcanos or some other “natural” source to produce the atmospheric carbon increase that you deny is from fossil fuels, the “equivalence principle” requires you to distribute that into your four sinks in similar proportions as the human carbon. You have way more carbon than you know what to do with.
Explain to Ision and to me how your model accomplishes this.
Dave
Dear Dave,
First, you do not follow the scientific method which says you must reject a theory when it conflicts with data or known physics. My preprint shows three arguments to reject the core theory:
1. The data in Figure 1.
2. How the claim that human carbon stays in the atmosphere much longer than natural carbon stays in the atmosphere violates the Equivalence Principle.
3. How IPCC’s human carbon distribution (Figure 7) is not compatible with IPCC’s natural carbon distribution (Figure 6).
Yet, you still cling to your precious core theory. Why?
Second, have you ever worked with models of this type? Most physicists have not. But numerical modeling is part of my expertise.
Third, if you wish to discuss the details of my model, you will need to be much more precise about where you are getting the numbers that you throw around in your comment. Please reference section numbers, figure numbers, etc, and show your calculations.
The purpose of my model is to calculate the true human contribution to atmospheric CO2. My model is not necessary to reject the core theory, but it helps nail shut the core theory coffin.
Your model does no such thing. Your model is wrong as Dave and I have explained to you. Your model conflicts with known physics and thus it can be safely ignored.
Dear (Fake) Immortal600:
You are welcome to your irrational opinion. But you have not made any valid argument that shows any error in my model. You do not even understand the problem, much less the solution. And you do not understand dynamic numerical models.
Like Dave, you do not understand that my preprint proves the core theory is wrong. Until you acknowledge that fact, then it is obvious that you do not even know how science works, or you refuse to follow the scientific method.
You do not even know how to make a point. “No such thing” is not a rational argument.
You are ashamed to tell us who you are. Dave is at least honest about who he is.
Yes, I have made valid arguments that shows your model is incorrect and Dave made the same observation. It’s as simple as the fact that you have assumed linearity, when the physical behavior is nonlinear.
This simple fact has been explained to you from multiple directions and you still don’t get it.
I understand dynamic numerical models far better than you do. You are stuck on linearity. The problem you are trying to solve is nonlinear, which means that if you want to linearize the problem then you have to do so with a proper Taylor series.
The point has been made and as you have done in the past it is likely that you will not post this or not respond in a rational manner.
Dear (fake) Immortal600,
You don’t get it that the IPCC assumes linearity, as I explained to Dave a few comments ago. Did you read it?
The first reason I use a linear function for outflow is that IPCC uses a linear function for outflow, and I must simulate IPCC’s natural carbon cycle before I calculate the “true” human carbon cycle that follows the same rules and IPCC’s natural carbon cycle. You miss the physics behind the math.
I have replicated IPCC’s natural carbon cycle without departing from IPCC’s own rules.
The second reason I use a linear function is that there are no data that suggests there is a significant departure from linearity. So, in this field, an extension into nonlinearity is a trip to nowhere.
You are like a guy with a hammer who thinks everything is a nail. You think, incorrectly, that IPCC’s carbon cycles should use a nonlinear function because somewhere in your engineering career you used a nonlinear function to solve a problem. Well, I have solved nonlinear problems also, so I know what a nonlinear problem is, and this is not one of them.
So, no, you have not made any valid arguments. You have not even admitted that I have proved the core theory is wrong. Like all believers in the irrational core theory, your mind is locked and you are being irrational.
Ed,
Your model, an attempt to correlate the data of Fig 6.1 in your reference 1, fails to account for the observed decline in land carbon. Therefore it must be rejected, and you know that very well. As usual you duck the issue. But I don’t really expect you to be truthful. It took you nearly a year to acknowledge your carbon 14 error, which led you into the corner you are in.
Dear Dave,
Please be specific. What “observed decline in land carbon? I am using IPCC’s data. Do you have some data that the IPCC does not mention?
I am not in any corner, Dave. It is you who is a corner. You reject the scientific method because you do not acknowledge that IPCC’s core theory is invalid. So where are you on the truth?
“You don’t get it that the IPCC assumes linearity, as I explained to Dave a few comments ago. Did you read it?”
They don’t assume linearity from zero. They assume linearity about the equilibrium state.
Taylor series aren’t difficult concepts. There’s a constant term, which sets the equilibrium state, and then there is a linear term which sets the rates for small perturbations about that equilibrium state.
You may have read the IPCC report, but you obviously do not understand it. Feel free to quote the passages that you believe support your claims.
Dear (fake) Immortal600,
Read the comment above that I made to Dave. It lists my IPCC quotes. These quotes make no reference to any nonlinearity and make all reference to the turnover time which is linear, even to zero.
First question: Where are your IPCC quotes that assume nonlinearity?
In this problem the levels never get to zero, so even if there were nonlinearities near zero, they do not matter to this problem.
Second question: So how is your concern about nonlinear relevant?
Third question: When are you going to admit that the core theory is wrong?
Ed,
By now you must be fully aware you have been targeted.
I respectfully suggest, when you discover intellectual dishonesty, or deliberate confusion, you cease attempting to “cure” the situation, as there is no “solution.” The unending litany of problems with your work do not need to be factual, nor sincere, and no matter how you respond to these fabricated issues, rectification of them is not going to be allowed.
We call this, “The Confusion Game,” which is an old disinformation technique used by Intelligence services, such as those I used to work for. The basic purpose is to confuse any interested third-parties, attempting to come up to speed on the issues, boggle their understanding, and motivate them to stop seeking to actively understand, and to prevent them from achieving confidence in the veracity of the target’s (your) conclusions.
It is designed to suppress the spread of unwanted information, exactly like the sort found herein.
If you can, simply attempt to block these professional trolls, when you discover them…and, give yourself a break. The more your engage them, the happier they become. The only winning move is to not play the game.
Teach as best you can, but…ignore the champions of intellectual fraud, whose harassment of your work is a matter of deceit and not enlightenment.
Dear Ision,
Well said and accurate.
I am about ready to slam the door on (fake) Immortal600. He has one more try to make intellectual sense.
Ed,
I am using Figure 6.1 of your Ref 1, the data that you used to compute your time constants. Changes in stored carbon during the industrial era (1750-2011 I believe) are listed in red as:
atmosphere +240 Pg
ocean +155
vegetation/soils -30
fossil fuel reserves -365
I believe we are both taking the above numbers as DATA that any model is required to replicate.
Your model has “human carbon L’s” through 2011
atmosphere +58.5 Pg
deep ocean + surface ocean = 158.1+30.7 = 188.8
land +115.9
total human carbon 363.3 (-363.3 is the change in fossil fuel reserves)
(The numbers here are not exactly what I posted before, as they went through 2020. I changed the time period to better match Fig 6.1)
Your problem is to add “natural carbon” to the system in order to bring the atmospheric carbon up to measured levels, without making the disagreement between model and data for the land carbon even worse. You just cannot do it.
Dear David,
We do not have to replicate your first paragraph red numbers because those numbers result from IPCC assuming the core theory is true. These numbers are not really data because no one measured them.
Your second paragraph numbers are almost my Figure 12.
My problem is not about adding natural carbon to the system.
The purpose of my model is to use IPCC’s black numbers for its natural carbon cycle to calculate the turnover times for the six nodes. Then, using these turnover times, my model calculates how human carbon, introduced annually into the atmosphere according to data, flows to the land, surface ocean, and deep ocean.
We don’t expect my calculations for human carbon to agree with IPCC’s numbers for its human carbon cycle because IPCC numbers assume the core theory is true, and my numbers assume IPCC’s natural carbon cycle is true.
My model does what the IPCC should have done but didn’t. My model calculates how the level changes with time using the same physics found in IPCC’s natural carbon cycle. These calculations show human carbon flows so fast from the atmosphere that only 33 ppm is still in the atmosphere in 2020.
This is the most accurate calculation anyone has made for the effect of human carbon on atmospheric CO2. Given this result, nature had to add 100 ppm to the atmosphere as of 2020.
“The reference to “turnover times” clarifies that the IPCC intends that outflows are directly proportional to the reservoir levels”
This is your faulty interpretation Ed.
It should give you pause that your model that assumes linearity gives poor results, whereas my model that correctly applied a Taylor series about equilibrium gave quite good results.
If you were one that abided by the scientific method then you would reject the poor model (yours) and take the time to properly understand the superior model (mine).
Dear (fake) Immortal600,
First, you don’t have any model. If you think you have a model, then show it.
Second, what is your proof of your claim that my model “gives poor results”?
Third, what is your proof of your claim that your model “gave quite good results”?
Fourth, you have not yet agreed that the core theory is false. Why?
Please don’t waste my time with your handwaving, numberless claims.
You can start back in July of 2020 on this thread.
Your model gives a ridiculous change for the CO2 in the deep oceans.
Even your faulty model shows that each of the reservoirs INCREASES in CO2 content due to human emissions. That would mean that your model DOES NOT show that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is natural.
For the simple exponential fit to the human emissions that I used, I get the following ppm changes in the land, atmosphere, ocean surface, and deep ocean:
Land: 1179 to ~1220 -> ~21%
Atmosphere: 278 to ~400 -> ~62%
Surface: 425 to ~460 -> ~18% (roundoff errors evident)
Deep: 17500 to ~17500 -> ~0%
Total input was ~ 196
Those numbers are MUCH closer to reality than your flawed numbers.
Dear (fake) Immortal600,
You just proved what I said: You do not have a model. All you have is your claimed numbers. You show nothing that I or anyone can review and check.
You did not answer my four questions. You are wasting everyone’s time. You are a nutcase.
Goodbye.
Ed,
My second set of numbers IS your model. And the comparison between first and second paragraph shows that even though your model is built around the data set of Fig 6.1, ref 1, it does not even fit that data. And the mismatch cannot be fixed by postulating “natural carbon” coming from an unspecified source.
You say you do not need to fit the red numbers. So you think vegetation really has increased 20-30% since 1800? That is what your model says.
I understand what your model does. I have downloaded the spreadsheet and played with it. Your model says that the great complexity of the carbon cycle can be reduced to 6 time constants. The IPCC warns against such naivety, but you know better.
Of course we have both known for awhile that your model also cannot explain the evolution of the “bomb pulse” of C14.
We haven’t even gotten into the issue of residence time versus adjustment time.
Dear Dave,
You say, “So you think vegetation really has increased 20-30% since 1800? That is what your model says.”
No, that is not what my model says. You are looking at my calculation for human carbon only. The percentages for human carbon in each reservoir are only for the amount of human carbon added to the carbon cycle when the total amount of human carbon added is less than one percent of natural carbon. So, that 30% you mention is 30% of 1%.
You wrote:
“Your model says that the great complexity of the carbon cycle can
be reduced to 6 time constants. The IPCC warns against such naivety, but you know better.”
No, the IPCC, not me, reduces the carbon cycle to 6 nodes, which have time constants.
To “explain” the evolution of the 14C data requires data regarding inflows. Do you have such data?
The 14C data are just that: data.
By the way, your “explanation” of the evolution of 14C concentration is wrong. My explanation is correct. I show how the D14C data return to the original balance level of zero explains the increase in 14C. 14C increased along with 12C but from a source that has D14C equal to about zero. The return to the zero level shows that nature, not human CO2, is the dominant cause of the increase in atmospheric CO2. You missed that point and you probably still don’t understand it.
Ed,
Look again at the numbers. There is no “30% of 1%”. Your model says that by 2020 147.3 Pg of human carbon had been added to land (vegetation) during the industrial age. The total store of carbon at the beginning of the industrial age is given as 450-650 Pg in Fig 6.1. That implies a 22.7% to 32.7% increase in vegetation during that period, unless you want to argue that natural carbon in vegetation has decreased in the period. That argument would violate your equivalence principle.
Dear David,
OK, you make a good point. However, please notice that my model uses 2500 PgC for Land at natural equilibrium. This comes from adding IPCC’s (Figure 6.1) averages for Vegetation (550 PgC) and Soils (1950 PgC) to get the total for the natural land resource of 2500 PgC. That 2500 PgC (shown in Figure 4) goes into calculating the Land turnover time.
Then my model, using that turnover time, calculates that 198 PgC of 452 PgC (or 43.43%) of human carbon is in the Land by 2020 (Figure 13). This 198 PgC is an 8% (human-caused) increase over the natural Land amount.
Realize that the IPCC says its numbers are accurate to about 20%.
Ed,
OK, vegetation plus soil is up by 8% in your model, whereas IPCC estimates it is down a % or two. But what is going to happen to this discrepancy in the total carbon when you add the large amount of “natural carbon” to the system that you say is necessary to bring the atmospheric level up to its measured value? It will get much bigger, by an amount that depends on what you think the source of the natural carbon is, and to some extent the time evolution of the natural emissions. Since a large part of the history of CO2 growth has been directly observed at Mauna Loa and correlates well with human emissions, I think your hypothetical natural carbon has to have been emitted on a similar time scale, i.e. more or less continuously, and at a higher rate in recent decades. It sure doesn’t sound like volcanos to me.
Harde argued that atmospheric “natural carbon” came from outgassing of the oceans due to global temperature rises, ie that temperature rises caused the CO2 increase rather than the other way around. A standard argument against that theory that convinces me is the DECREASE in atmospheric oxygen that correlates well with the increase in CO2. When you burn a lump of coal, you use up oxygen. Your Ref 1 discusses it. Heating the oceans should cause oxygen outgassing just like CO2 outgassing, and an INCREASE in atmospheric oxygen, if Harde were right.
If Ision, who loves CO2, is still out there, maybe he can tell us if he loves oxygen too. I would hope so. A friend thinks an oxygen tax would be an easier sell than a carbon tax, and that friend might be right. When you burn fossil fuels, you are consuming oxygen and the effect on atmospheric oxygen levels is easily measurable (though not of immediate concern).
We still need to get to residence time vs adjustment time.
I do not love Oxygen as much as I do CO2. After all, CO2 was here first, and that pesky Oxygen pollution makes things rust! I haven’t decided how I feel about Argon, yet. But, I like Nitrogen for inflating my tires, so it is okay.
I know…I know…and I am in therapy for my Oxygen antagonism and am conflicted a bit by CO2’s responsibility for it…
Dear David,
There are several resources (that I have not looked for in this reply) that show plants are growing much faster now than many years ago and they say the cause is the increased atmospheric CO2.
The decrease in oxygen measures only the amount of carbon that has been burned to form atmospheric CO2. This decrease in oxygen does not say anything about the flows of carbon into and out of the atmosphere, and it follows its own oxygen cycle. So, it has nothing to say about the cause of the increase in atmospheric CO2.
Regarding nature’s part in the increase, data show that CO2 concentration follows temperature. More precisely, the rate of CO2 increase follows temperature. If we assume this relationship is accurate, then we would expect nature’s added CO2 would be smooth over time, as you suggest.
Since the source of the natural CO2 increase has a D14C value close to zero, it is likely the oceans and not volcanoes provide this CO2 increase.
You are welcome to discuss residence time vs adjustment time whenever you wish.
Ed,
Yes, according to studies, increased CO2 plus warmer temperatures have increased plant growth somewhat, especially at the mid-latitudes. This would be included in the IPCC numbers for carbon in the “land sink.”
If the atmospheric carbon increase is caused by outgassing from warmer oceans, then oxygen should also be outgassing and increasing in the atmosphere as well. Instead it is decreasing, and this is further evidence that the combustion of fossil fuels is having an important effect on atmospheric gasses.
Following is a table of atmospheric, land, and ocean carbon changes during the industrial era, through 2011, all given in Pg’s. The first column is the TOTAL CARBON CHANGE, per Figure 6.1 of your Ref 1, the same place you got the data for your model. The second column is the HUMAN CAUSED CARBON CHANGE according to your model. The third column is column 1 minus column 2, i.e. (total carbon change in a sink) – (human carbon change in a sink according to you model) which would be (NATURAL CARBON CHANGE in a sink according to your model). I have shown columns 1 and 2 before and invited you to think about column 3, the distribution of natural carbon. You did not respond, so I have done the arithmetic for you:
SINK TOTAL C CHANGE HUMAN C CHANGE NATURAL C CHANGE
(per Berry) (per Berry)
atmosphere 240 58.5 181.5
land -30 115.9 -145.9
oceans 155 188.8 -33.8
The absurdity of your model is apparent in this table. The 365 Pg of carbon removed from sequestered fossil fuel reserves went initially into the atmosphere. You say that the great majority of human carbon has left the atmosphere and gone into the land and oceans. Meanwhile (you say) outgassing oceans have greatly increased the atmospheric carbon, but for some reason have taken carbon from the land!
For a long time you have falsely claimed that the IPCC models treat human emissions and natural sources of carbon differently. In fact, it has also been your model that violates what you named “the equivalence principle.”
SINK________TOTAL C CHANGE__________HUMAN C CHANGE__________ NATURAL C CHANGE
_____________________________________________(per Berry)_____________________(per Berry)
atmosphere _____+240________________________+58.5 _________________________+181.5
land_______________-30_______________________+ 115.9_________________________ -145.9
oceans__________+155_______________________+ 188.8__________________________ -33.8
Table from previous post, reformatted
Dear David,
Thank you for your comment. Even though you are wrong, your comment helps me reply to people like you who have enormously difficult times understanding the obvious.
Figure 2 shows the IPCC numbers for both the natural and human carbon cycles. IPCC’s natural carbon cycle numbers are from data.
However, IPCC’s numbers for its human carbon cycle derive not from data but from IPCC’s ASSUMPTION that human-caused carbon emissions are responsible for ALL the increase in atmospheric CO2 greater than 589 PgC (278 ppm). That is your column one. It is pure junk science based on an invalid assumption.
Column 2 is from my calculations using the data in IPCC’s natural carbon cycle to calculate a true human carbon cycle. The fact that you claim IPCC’s Column 1 is more reliable than my Column 2 shows you cannot understand my Preprint, my model, and my calculations.
Your inability to understand my calculations shows you are a wannabe atmospheric physicist. Your haste to call my calculations incorrect shows you do not even have the proper scientific attitude to do climate physics.
IPCC simply takes the measured atmospheric CO2 level of 829 PgC in about 2011 and ASSUMES human CO2 emissions caused ALL the increase in atmospheric CO2 above its claimed natural level of 589 PgC, thereby getting 240 PgC (113 ppm) for the human-caused increase to the atmosphere in about 2011. Then the IPCC irrationally dumps the human carbon it cannot squeeze into the atmosphere into the deep ocean. That is pure junk science. What a waste of taxpayer money.
Here is a correction to your numbers with surface and deep ocean data shown:
Reservoir____IPCC Human ______Berry Human ______Berry Natural
Land_____________0_______________172__________________(no data)
Atmos__________240________________64__________________176
Surf Ocean_______0_______________ 33__________________(no data)
Deep Ocean_____155_______________126__________________(no data)
Total__________395_______________395__________________(no data)
Reference_____Figure_4&6_________Figure_11_%_of_395
Figure 2 shows that IPCC moved 30 PgC from the land to the atmosphere.
My preprint omits this IPCC 30 PgC because (a) IPCC assigns an error of +/- 45 PgC to this 30 PgC, (b) IPCC has no valid annual data for human-caused carbon emissions from land use, (c) 30 PgC in this context is negligible, and (d) the focus of climate politics is upon human emissions from burning carbon fuels.
Therefore, Column 2 uses my Figure 11 percentages for 365 PgC carbon fuel emissions as of about 2011 and adds IPCC’s 30 PgC to get 395 PgC to properly compare with Column 1.
I don’t know where you got your Column 3. The only number I assign to Column 3 is for atmospheric carbon. There are no data that assign numbers for the natural changes in the other reservoirs.
You can compare IPCC’s human carbon cycle shown in Figure 6 with the true human carbon cycle derived from IPCC’s natural carbon cycle data shown in Figure 11.
Do you really think Figure 6 represents the real human carbon cycle better than Figure 11?
Every intelligent person should be able to understand that your Column 1 is an illusion.
ANNOUNCEMENT
I continually update my preprint to make it better. Today, I updated the PDF at the top of this post to my June 5 version. Only the text and figures numbers are changed. The math and calculations remain unchanged.
My introduction was too long, according to some reviewers. So, I removed the figures showing the charts by Kouwenberg and Beck, and I put IPCC’s Figure 6.1 in Figure 2.
I added a few more IPCC quotes to help the dumbheads who don’t understand what the IPCC says because they think they already know what the IPCC says.
Ed,
Column 1 is NOT IPCC’s estimate of human carbon. It is IPCC’s estimate of the CHANGE in total carbon in each of the sinks during the industrial era. IPCC does not label some carbon human and some natural. Only you do. For the atmosphere, the carbon change is well measured since ice core data gives good measurements of atmospheric CO2 from ~250 years ago, and of course we have good measurements today. For land that quantity is estimated from a complex and detailed analysis, region by region. The conclusion that there is a little less carbon “on land” after 250 years of forest clearing makes perfect sense to me. (If you want to put “0” in column 1 for land change instead of “-30”, and change the human emissions from 365 to 395, it doesn’t change the problem you have much.) Finally yes, I believe the estimate of increased carbon in the ocean is constrained to make the total change in atmosphere, land, and sea equal to the estimated total fossil fuel emissions. The assumption is merely that carbon is conserved, an obvious constraint and not at all junk science. Certainly the observed increased acidification of the oceans is consistent with carbon in the oceans increasing.
Column 2 is all yours.
I explained how I got Colum 3: I subtracted Column 2 from Column 1, reservoir by reservoir. That is exactly what you did to get your “176” for the amount of “natural” carbon in the atmosphere. The only reason you do not do it for the ocean and land sinks, is that you are embarrassed by the result, which clearly shows that your model implies that human and natural carbon behave differently. One of the few things we agree on: that cannot be true.
Dear Dave,
You have become a complete nutcase. You are not able to understand the IPCC of my preprint. I quote the IPCC sentences that refute your comment. Your comment is idiotic. Every claim in your comment is wrong.
I don’t know how to help you. I think you are beyond help. Maybe there is a shrink out there who can help.
I suggest you take a few days to read my preprint, especially the IPCC quotes, and think about this carefully before you make another nutcase comment.
Ed,
You disrespect your followers when you assume they cannot understand that (change in total carbon) = (change in human emitted carbon) + (change in natural carbon.) Your followers can see that your hysterical response is an attempt to distract them from seeing that your model is toast. The jigs up.
Dear Dave,
You still don’t get it that the IPCC ASSUMES the change in human carbon equals the change in total carbon. You make the same assumption as the IPCC. Therefore, you miss the whole problem.
Your reading comprehension is so low that you do not understand IPCC’s description of its Figure 6.1 that clearly says the red numbers represent human carbon.
Your climate IQ is so low that you believe IPCC’s numbers in your Column 1 are data, which they are not. Your Column 1 numbers result from IPCC’s ASSUMPTION that the core theory is true, which it is not. So your whole argument is circular and invalid.
We have approximate data for the annual human carbon emissions due to burning carbon fuels since about 1750. We have good data for the annual change in atmospheric CO2 after 1960. We have NO data that tells us human emissions cause ALL the increase in atmospheric CO2.
We have NO data for the annual change in the total natural carbon. You ASSUME the total natural carbon in the carbon cycle has been constant since 1750, and that human emissions have caused all the CO2 increase.
So your argument is so full of ASSUMPTIONS that it is junk science. All good scientists acknowledge and list the assumptions in their arguments. You do not. You assign constraints to your thinking where data do not justify the constraints.
Dear Ed,
See? When you discover the absence of Reason in a party, and context divorced from meaning, teaching and learning vanish, as no communication can take place.
The corrupt intellect simply pushes their cognitive “Reset” button, returning it to an unmodified state. It is an emotional phenomenon found in emotionally indoctrinated people, in order to avoid doubt regarding what has been programed into them.
It is not their fault, as most people are the victims of the deliberate mutilations of their cognitive powers by the institutions they were forced to attend, until enough indoctrination had been achieved, which motivated them to continue their indoctrination on their own, and pay for it themselves.
By the time you get to play with these people, they are hopelessly unconscious of the mental barriers their minds are infested with, and any transgression of them only invokes an emotional reaction, which protects them from the uncomfortable emotions created by the surfacing of doubt, along with the mental “work” doubt provokes.
Remember the old definition for “insanity?”
You are able to point out the contradictions (fallacies) of the IPCC, which are sufficient to remove it from any serious consideration as a tool for the comprehension of Identity (Reality). And, as a result, have properly discovered Human CO2 to be meaningless (insignificant) to Climate. And, further, all the Herculean efforts to reduce Human CO2 emissions are also meaningless to the Climate, about which, such efforts NEVER were meant to effect…but are meant only for political and economic control over Human means of production.
I appreciate your hard work on this matter.
Ed,
Perhaps it would be more productive if you say what you think and I say what I think, and you stop saying what IPCC thinks, because you have a bad habit of misrepresenting them. It took you nearly a year to acknowledge your critical error in analyzing C14 data, so I suspect your apparent failure to understand the argument I am now making is all bluster. But in case you really haven’t understood, I will lay it out again, with one change to accommodate your comment.
The column 1 numbers we have discussed are the measured or inferred CHANGES IN TOTAL CARBON for three different sinks (atmosphere, land, oceans) during the industrial era. The COLUMN 1 numbers are:
+240 Pg in the atmosphere, determined by the difference between current measurements and ice core measurements of CO2. There is NO assumption here about how much of the 240 Pg is from the 365 Pg humans have put into the atmosphere versus other sources. This is a measurement, and the measurements don’t identify the source of the carbon.
-30 Pg in land sinks. This is the best estimate from complicated studies of forest growth and clearing over the last 250 years. Of course there are uncertainties, but neither of us is in a position to second guess this number, and you gave no good reason to arbitrarily set it to 0, and that change doesn’t materially affect the argument anyway. There is NO assumption about how much of the remaining carbon in plants, soil, etc came from burned fossil fuels.
+155 Pg added to the oceans. Yes, this number uses the 365 Pg added to the system by fossil fuel burning to constrain the total (240 -30 +155 = 365). It is an expression of carbon conservation. Of course, the seams of coal and oil reserves had been there, sequestered, before 1800, but the 365 Pg is taken as “new carbon” added to the cycle. If there is an additional source of natural “new carbon” that had been sequestered, say undersea volcanoes emitting X Pg, then this number should be 155 + X, where X is a positive number. I did not have this X in my previous post. X is 0 if your hypothetical outgassing of the oceans is of carbon already in the cycle. (Of course, this explanation of atmospheric carbon increase is contradicted by the oxygen data.)
COLUMN 2 is YOUR MODEL of how much of the carbon change in the sinks came from human sources. Unlike column 1, this is not data it is BERRY’S MODEL:
Atmosphere +58.5
Land +115.9
Ocean +188.8
COLUMN 3, computed as Column 1- Column 2, is also BERRY’S MODEL for the amount of natural carbon added to the sinks. You need to take responsibility for it, Ed. As surely as 1 + 1 = 2, “total carbon change in a sink” [column 1] = “change in the human carbon in that sink”[column 2] + “change in the natural carbon in that sink [column 3]. From this it follows that BERRY’S MODEL implies that the change in natural (i.e. non-anthropogenic) carbon is:
Atmosphere +181.5
Land -145.9
Ocean -33.8 + X
Including this “X” (which I did not include before) makes your model sound a little better. At least you can make X big enough to account for the observed acidification of the oceans. But again: your model requires “natural carbon” to distribute itself very differently from “human carbon.” Tell us why your model says human carbon has been accumulating in land sinks while at the same time natural carbon in land sinks has decreased. You cannot. Your model is nonsense. Case closed.
A note to “Fonzie”: I do not understand your comment. We all agree that atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are up. There have been more than enough human emissions to account for this. If it is not from human sources, where is it from? Any accounting of carbon has to balance increases in one place with decreases in another. Ed’s model does that. But by not working out what his model implies about the flows of non-anthropogenic carbon, Ed did not see that it is HIS model, not IPCC’s, that treats human and natural CO2 differently.
Dear David,
You say,
“+240 Pg in the atmosphere, determined by the difference between current measurements and ice core measurements of CO2. There is NO assumption here about how much of the 240 Pg is from the 365 Pg humans have put into the atmosphere versus other sources. This is a measurement, and the measurements don’t identify the source of the carbon.”
Your column 1 is based on only two measurements for each year: (a) the CO2 in the atmosphere and (b) the annual human CO2 emissions.
Yet you still think those two data points prove human CO2 caused all the increase in atmospheric CO2. It is impossible for those two data points to support such a claim because there are no data that show how much of the CO2 increase was caused by natural CO2 vs human CO2.
The only way to get the numbers (not data) in your column 1 is to ASSUME the natural CO2 level stayed constant at 280 ppm while human CO2 caused all the CO2 increase. That is an invalid ASSUMPTION and nutcase circular reasoning.
Until you get that, there is no use continuing this conversation.
Regarding your note to Fonzie, you say incorrectly,
“But by not working out what his model implies about the flows of non-anthropogenic carbon, Ed did not see that it is HIS model, not IPCC’s, that treats human and natural CO2 differently.”
Before you criticize my preprint, you have an ethical obligation to understand my preprint. But you ignore that. Obviously, you cannot understand my preprint and you are ashamed to admit it.
Face it, Dave, you are a third-rate physicist. Your only reason to attack my physics is not science but your BELIEF that human CO2 causes dangerous climate change.
Ed,
Reread what I wrote. I make no claims about the human versus “natural” carbon in today’s atmosphere. For the third or fourth time, Column 1 is only about the change in TOTAL carbon in each of the three sinks during the past ~250 years. Of course much of the atmospheric human carbon emissions in that period have been replaced with carbon that you would call “natural”, while human carbon has found its way from the atmosphere to land sinks and the oceans. But that exchange does not absolve humans from being the primary cause of the atmospheric CO2 increase. See the difference between “residence time” and “adjustment time.”
I understand your analysis completely. You have modeled human carbon flow (with dubious parameters), but you have not finished the job. You have not modeled “natural” carbon flows. If you did, you would see that with your parametrization, natural carbon changes plus human carbon changes don’t add up to the observed total carbon changes.
Dear David,
No, you do not understand my preprint. You prove that in your comments.
Column 1 is NOT the total change in carbon in the three sinks. Column 1 is your imagined carbon change in the three sinks. You can’t tell the difference between facts and assumptions.
Of course, I do not model the natural carbon flows because we have no direct data on natural CO2 emissions. Without inputs, a model is useless.
Everything in your above comment is irrational and incorrect. Your suggestion that the difference between IPCC’s definition of residence time and adjustment time implies human CO2 caused all the CO2 increase is also irrational.
I always welcome rational criticisms of my papers. But your comments have become a distraction because they are like a broken record player, repeating the same junk science over and over again.
Does the change in total carbon in a sink equal the change in human carbon in that sink plus the change in natural carbon in that sink? Yes or no.
Of course. That is how I conclude that natural CO2 has added about 100 ppm to the atmosphere as of 2020. I subtract the calculated 33 ppm caused by human CO2 from the measured increase in CO2 to get the increase caused by natural CO2.
But you can’t get that because you are locked into the IPCC assumption that human CO2 caused all the increase.
Ed,
We are making progress. We agree that if we subtract the Berry Model’s calculation for the human carbon remaining in the atmosphere from the total measured change in carbon in the atmosphere, we get the Berry Model’s calculation for natural carbon added to the atmosphere.
Now let’s do the same thing for carbon on land. Note that the Berry Model says that carbon put into the atmosphere from coal fired power plants is ultimately distributed to the land in the ratio 115.9Pg/58.3Pg = 1.99, compared to what stays in the atmosphere. By the “equivalence principle” that we both accept, this means that the carbon spewing from hypothetical undersea volcanos that works its way to the atmosphere, to make up the 181.5 Pg (240-58.5) of atmospheric carbon increase that the Berry Model says is not from humans, should also put about 181.5 x 1.99 =361 Pg into the land. This is in addition to the 115.9 of land carbon change that the Berry Model attributes to humans. So the Berry Model says that about 361 + 115.9 = 476.9 Pg of carbon has been added to the land the last ~ 250 years. That is a lot of carbon. Don’t you think we would have noticed? According to the famous IPCC figure 6.1, all vegetation amounts to 450 – 650 Pg of carbon, and the best estimate of land carbon changes in the industrial era is -30 +-45 Pg. So the Berry Model predicts 476.9 for a quantity estimated at -30, and misses by about 11x the estimated error.
Dear David,
Nice that we agree on your first paragraph.
However, your second paragraph does not properly describe my model. You say “ultimately distributed” and then you use numbers that do not represent ultimately distributed.
“Ultimately distributed” is best described in percentages. Figure 5 shows these percentages. The data come from IPCC’s figure 6.1 (here Figure 2) for natural carbon.
My model shows that all carbon (human and natural) added to the carbon cycle (in the amounts we are talking about) will ultimately assume the same percentages as shown in Figure 5.
In addition, my model shows how fast any added carbon will move to those ultimate percentages.
So, all the numbers in your second paragraph do not represent my model. Nice try.
Ed,
You may be surprised to find that I agree that some of the numbers I have posted do not represent your model. I inadvertently switched two of them. The Berry Model says that human carbon accumulated in the land sink through 2011 was 158.2 Pg (not 115.9 Pg), and the amount accumulated in the deep ocean was 115.9 Pg (not 158.2 Pg). I made the mistake in a June 1 post of what we are calling “column 2”, and carried it through the later posts. Perhaps that has made it more difficult for you to follow my argument, even though it is quite straightforward.
I believe that I made the error by looking at your Figure 10, which has the same error. The curve you label “Deep Ocean” is the curve you calculated for Land , and vice versa. “Lg” in your spreadsheet is clearly meant to be Land level, and “Ld” Deep Ocean level, but that is not how the plots are labeled.
I stand behind the logic of my last several posts, and when I correct the numerical error, your model is even further off the mark in describing carbon accumulation in the land sink. The Berry Model says that as of 2011 there was 158.2/58.5 =2.70 (not 1.99) times more human carbon in the land compared to the atmosphere. Your model still has 181.5 Pg of added natural carbon in the atmosphere, and now when I repeat the application of the “equivalence principle” as before, I find that the Berry model predicts 606 Pg of total carbon added to the land during the industrial era. The best estimate of this quantity from data is -30 +-45, so you are now off by 14x the estimated error instead of 11x.
Your Figure 5 is not relevant to the discussion, but your Figure 10 (after you correct it) is. Figure 10 shows that in the Berry Model, the levels of human carbon in the various sinks remain roughly proportional. The ratios of the curves are approximately constant. You therefore cannot argue, as you seemed to try to do in your comment, that somehow transient effects invalidate my argument.
Generally speaking, models which attribute atmospheric CO2 growth to sources of carbon other than fossil fuels have the problem that they have more carbon than they know what to do with. As you well know, the fossil fuel carbon is by itself ~ 40% more than is needed to account for the atmospheric carbon growth, and standard analyses say the rest has gone to the oceans, especially the deep ocean. But the Berry Model, with the added constraint of the “equivalence principle” says that a very large chunk has gone to the Land, enough to approximately double vegetation since the beginning of the industrial age. If you believe that, I have this bridge you might be interested in…
Dear David,
First off, you get a gold star. Thank you very much for finding my labeling error in Figure 10 that inadvertently switched the labels for land and deep ocean, ending up disagreeing with my own calculations. I updated the PDF above to correct this error.
Now on to your other stuff. You are using data from tab “HumanBB” of my spreadsheet that calculates how human CO2 flowing into the atmosphere flows to the other reservoirs.
You select my numbers for 2011, which is fine but these calculated numbers for 2011 are very close to the numbers for 2010, which I have plotted in Figure 11. The total human carbon added as of 2010 is 354 PgC, and your land to atmosphere ratio in 2010 is 2.71. So far, we agree.
But how do you derive that my model “still has 181.5 PgC of natural carbon added to the atmosphere”?
And how do you conclude that my model “predicts 606 PgC of total carbon is added to the land during the industrial era”?
Please show how you got your numbers so I can respond to your comment.
Finally, in your last paragraph, you say, “fossil fuel carbon is by itself ~40% more than is needed to account for atmospheric carbon growth, and standard analyses say the rest has gone to the oceans, especially the deep ocean.”
In that sentence, you are merely restating the assumption that human carbon causes all the CO2 increase and natural carbon stays constant, or in my terms, you are assuming the core theory is true.
You can’t prove the core theory is true by assuming the core theory is true.
Figure 6 shows the IPCC claim based upon its assumption that the core theory is true. It shows no human carbon enters the land, which is irrational because we know that natural carbon enters the land.
IPCC’s human carbon cycle conflicts with IPCC’s natural carbon cycle, contradicting the equivalence principle. So, why should anyone believe IPCC’s human carbon cycle is true?
My model uses the physics embedded in IPCC’s natural carbon cycle to calculate a true human carbon cycle as shown in Figure 11.
Figure 6 is not even close to Figure 11. So, which is more correct?
If you say Figure 6 is more correct, then you are assuming the core theory is true, violating the equivalence principle.
If you say Figure 11 is more correct, then you are assuming the equivalence principle is true.
Take your choice. But if you choose Figure 6, then you do not have any bridges to sell.
Ed,
Thank you for fixing your error on Figure 10. Let me respond to a couple of extraneous comment you made in your last post.
First, you called attention to your Figure 6, probably as a distraction from addressing my main argument, but I will take the bait. As is your habit, you either willfully or ignorantly misrepresent IPCC with Figure 6. To begin with, your title is wrong. Instead of “IPCC Human Carbon in 2010”, the title should be “Changes in Total Carbon from 1800 to 2010, as a percentage of Estimated Human Emissions.” IPCC doesn’t talk about “human carbon” since the data they use cannot, of course, identify the source of the carbon. In addition, your Figure 6 indicates that carbon in the Land sink has not changed, which is not what IPCC says. IPCC reckons that it has DECREASED by 30 +_ 45 Pg. Your “adjustment” from -30 to 0 is small and within the error estimate, but scientists who respect data do not arbitrarily do this sort of thing. No doubt you did it because “-30 Pg” of human carbon in the land would sound, and be, ridiculous. On the other hand, a change in total carbon in land sinks of -30 Pg makes perfect sense. I suggest therefore that you change the title to Figure 6 and that you don’t fudge IPCC data.
Second, how on earth does my making the true statement “fossil fuel carbon is by itself ~40% more than needed to account for atmospheric carbon growth” mean that I have “assumed the core theory”. Your Figure 1 says the same thing! Have you yourself then “assumed the core theory”? Once again, you disrespect your readers with this nonsense.
If you give rational responses to these comments and still want to know, I will explain again how the Berry Model is awash in way too much land carbon and is not self-consistent. I suspect most of your readers already understand the arguments I have made previously. Perhaps you should ask your technical advisor “Ision” to explain it to you. I will respond to honest questions from anyone who is truly unclear.
Dear David,
Thank you again for helping improve my paper. You are a good “mop-up-man.”
Theoreticians, like me, typically skip over the unimportant stuff as they focus on the big picture. Every theoretician needs a mop-up-man to help clean up the details.
But you are correct. So, I added IPCC’s 30 PgC deficit to land in both Figures 4 and 6. Then, I changed the text describing these figures. As a result, you made my case stronger than it was before.
If we were working at a university, I would pay you a small fee for your help, like I would pay a grad student. But here, you get your reward by criticizing me as try to prove me wrong.
Regarding your other suggestions, my Figure 6 title is correct and if you think about it, you may eventually understand my preprint.
Yes, the IPCC does talk about human carbon. Can you see the little red numbers and arrows in Figure 2? They represent the human carbon that the IPCC adds on top of natural carbon (shown by black numbers and arrows.)
The only reason that human carbon equals the change is because IPCC assumes the natural carbon cycle remains constant, e.g., IPCC assumes its core theory is true. When you call human carbon “the” change, you constrain natural carbon to not change.
To do theoretical physics, we must free our minds of invalid assumptions. We must remove IPCC’s constraint on natural carbon and allow natural carbon to change, as it must.
When you say “fossil fuel is by itself ~40% more than needed to account for atmospheric carbon growth,” it shows you are not looking at the physics correctly. Worse, it suggests you really do think human carbon has caused all the CO2 increase in atmospheric CO2, which means you believe the core theory is true, which makes you a slave.
No, Figure 1 does not say the same thing. Figure 1 is intended to show that there was not enough total carbon before 1950 to have caused all the CO2 increase, using IPCC’s data.
But Jerry has a much better challenge to my Figure 1 than you do, so I will address his challenge separately.
Ed,
Your Figure 6 now claims that the amount of “human carbon” on land masses is “-30Pg”! What could that possibly mean? Perhaps you will say it has to do with land use CHANGES. Ahah! The numbers in the little red circles of Figure 2 are the CHANGES in total carbon in the various sinks, not the amount of “human carbon” as you had asserted before.
At this point I am going to leave the discussion of Figure 6, etc, because my main goal is not to keep correcting your misunderstandings and/or misrepresentations of the IPCC’s work. My main goal is to push your simple model of the carbon cycle a little, to see what we get.
If you indeed imagine yourself to be a “theoretical physicist”, or an objective scientist of any sort, you should welcome this. Let’s see if we can do this without you hurling insults or ranting about me “assuming the core theory.”“Human carbon”, by your definition, consists of the very same carbon atoms once in fossil fuels (or released in cement production), now dispersed to air, land, and sea. You take “natural carbon” to be all other carbon. Independently of your model, we should agree on the following:
1. The total amount of “human carbon” added to the atmosphere, land sinks, and the oceans in the industrial age through 2010 or 2011 is about 365 Pg.
2. The increase in total carbon in the atmosphere in the same period is about 240 Pg. Some of this is “human” and some is not.
3. Total carbon in land sinks has decreased during this time by about 30 Pg (+-45 Pg)
If we agree on this, must we not conclude that a net total of 365 – 240 + 30 = 155 Pg of carbon has moved from air & land to the oceans during the industrial age?
There cannot be a net flux out of the oceans as some, including you, have speculated.
If there have been undetected land volcanos, the total carbon going into the oceans must be higher by the amount they have emitted. If there have been undetected underwater volcanos, the ocean carbon content has increased by more than 155 Pg, but that remains the net transported FROM the air and land INTO the oceans.
Nowhere above have I assumed the “core theory”, just conservation of carbon. All this is pretty basic and we have not looked at your model much, but I will pause here to see if you have any comments.
Dear Dave,
I would really like to discuss your whole comment BUT we cannot do this until we agree on your first paragraph.
Can you not read the IPCC quotation that I put just before Figure 2? Here is what it says:
“IPCC Figure 6.1 legend separates the natural carbon cycle (in black) from the human carbon cycle (in red),
“Black numbers and arrows indicate reservoir mass and exchange fluxes estimated for the time prior to the Industrial Era, about 1750.”
“Red arrows and numbers indicate annual ‘anthropogenic’ fluxes averaged over the 2000-2009 time-period.”
Figure 6 merely copies these IPCC numbers in Figure 2. How can you claim Figure 6 is incorrect when it uses the same numbers as Figure 2?
Let’s get this issue cleared up before we try to discuss the rest of your comment.
You are entitled to your own arguments but not to your own data.
Ed,
Read the whole of the caption to Figure 6.1. Next to the arrows, representing fluxes, indeed the red numbers mean fluxes in Pg/yr. But “Red numbers IN THE RESERVOIRS [my emphasis] denote cumulative changes of anthropogenic carbon over the Industrial Period 1750-2011.”
So “-365”, “240”, “-30”, etc are all total changes in the 261 year period, measured in Pg, not fluxes (flow rates) which are measured in Pg/yr.
I know you don’t like the term “anthropogenic carbon”, but what IPCC means is different from your “human carbon” as we will be discussing in due course.
You have correctly understood that -30 Pg is the change in total land carbon elsewhere in your blog. Do you think having a negative number for “IPCC Human Carbon in 2010” makes any sense? The numbers may be from IPCC, but it is your plot, not theirs.
Dear Dave,
In your prior comment you wrote:
“The numbers in the little red circles of Figure 2 are the CHANGES in total carbon in the various sinks, not the amount of “human carbon” as you had asserted before.”
In your next post you quoted:
“Red numbers IN THE RESERVOIRS [my emphasis] denote cumulative changes of anthropogenic carbon over the Industrial Period 1750-2011.”
Your IPCC quote says the red numbers represent changes are in “anthropogenic” carbon, not “total” carbon as you claimed in your prior comment, proving me right and you wrong.
Next, you complain that Figures 4 and 6 are wrong when all they do is to replot IPCC’s own data shown in Figure 2.
Please explain yourself because you are inconsistent with both the IPCC and yourself.
Q1: Do you agree that IPCC’s red numbers are for human carbon and not for total carbon?
Q2: Do you agree that Figures 4 and 6 use IPCC’s red numbers shown in Figure 2?
Ed,
Your Q1: Do you agree that IPCC’s red numbers are for human carbon and not for total carbon? My answer: I certainly do NOT agree. As I said in my earlier post, your “human carbon” is not the same as what IPCC calls “anthropogenic carbon”. I will elaborate below.
Your Q2: Do you agree that Figures 4 and 6 use IPCC’s red numbers shown in Figure 2? My answer: Yes, that is where the numbers came from, but your labeling of Figure 6 is ridiculous. Are you saying that IPCC believes anti-carbon is accumulating on land? Maybe the extra flux of cosmic rays that Harde and Salby needed to explain the C14 concentration also produces anti-carbon.
OK, I will say what you want me to say: In the IPCC model, the change in total carbon is the same as the change in anthropogenic carbon. In your terminology, “natural carbon” is fixed in their model. So we can surmise total carbon changes from what they label anthropogenic changes, e.g -30 Pg on land. You want the freedom to vary background carbon levels, even though the geological record says they have been quite stable on time scales of centuries. We can do analyses that allow that, after we accept the IPCC data as total carbon changes. Those analyses need the total carbon data, but need not “assume the core theory.” That is what I was working on when we got distracted by Figure 6.
Let’s think about “human carbon” vs “anthropogenic carbon” with an analogy. There is a water trough on a school playground, filled nearly to the top with “natural water”. The caretaker measures the level every day for weeks, and it is stable. Some kids are let loose on the playground, and word gets back to the caretaker that some were seen peeing in the water trough. He measures the level, and sure enough, there appears to be some “human water” added to what had been there before. This is a concern, since the level increased halfway to the top, and if it happens again the trough may overflow into the principal’s office. An expert is called in, analyzes samples, and calculates mixing rates. “Nothing to worry about” he concludes. “Only 3% of the water is ‘human water’. This won’t overflow anytime soon. Let the kids have fun.” A second expert is called, this time from the IPCC. “The kids caused the level to rise halfway to the top. That is, 100% of the rise was anthropogenic, even though the concentration of ‘human water’ is only 3%. Don’t let it happen again.”
Dear David,
Your analogy is a joke. Anthropogenic means “human-caused” and human means “of or pertaining to humans.” My preprint uses both these words correctly in their proper places.
Your answer to Question 1 is incorrect. You are unable to distinguish between data and assumptions.
Your answer to Question 2 is incorrect. The meanings of the data in Figures 4 and 6 are the same as IPCC defines them in Figure 2. You are creating strawmen.
You don’t understand that there are no data that show the core theory is true, e.g., that the natural CO2 level remained constant while human CO2 added all the CO2 above 280 ppm.
You don’t understand that the IPCC ASSUMES the core theory is true.
You don’t understand that my preprint proves the core theory is false.
You think you can prove my preprint is wrong when you first assume IPCC’s core theory is true. That is circular reasoning.
Either you never were a real physicist, or your irrational belief that the core theory is true has destroyed your mind, or you have gone senile.
You claim that the pre-1950 data in Figure 1 of your preprint contradict what you call IPCC’s core theory about the cause of rising atmospheric CO2, and you assert, based only on the pre-1950 data, that you have proved IPCC’s core theory is wrong. But the emissions data in that figure (and in Figure 10) are not the cumulative global sum of human CO2 emissions before or after 1950, and your interpretation of the pre-1950 data and the conclusion you drew from it are incorrect.
First, what you call the “sum of human CO2 emissions” in the two figures is only the sum of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production. This should have been obvious to you from the 2020 Gilfillan et al. document you cite in the Figure 1 legend as the source of the CO2 emissions data in that figure. That reference contains data only on CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production. It does not include any data on human CO2 emissions from land use and land cover changes. Hence, your sum of human CO2 emissions in both Figure 1 and 10, both before and after 1950, is less than the actual sum, and it’s why the pre-1950 sum of human CO2 emissions in those two figures is less than the observed CO2 prior to 1950.
Available data shows that the combined cumulative sum of CO2 emissions globally from land use and land cover change and fossil fuel combustion and cement production is large enough to exceed the observed CO2 level for the entire period covered in your Figure 1. Numerous papers have been published over at least the past 20+ years containing estimates of historic global CO2 emissions from land use and land cover changes. The estimated emissions are those attributable to the direct anthropogenic effects of those changes. Hence, they are considered human emissions. Some of the estimates of those emissions extend back to 1750. For example, a 2020 paper by Gasser et al. contains estimates of historical CO2 emissions from land use and cover change from 1750 to 2018.
[Gasser. T., L. Crepin, Y. Quilcaille, R.A. Houghton, P. Cais, and M. Obersteiner 2020. Historical CO2 emissions from land use and land cover change and their uncertainty. Biogeosciences. 17: 4075-4101.] https://bg.copernicus.org/articles/17/4075/2020/bg-17-4075-2020.pdf
Their results show an increasing trend in cumulative global carbon emissions from land use and land cover changes over that entire period. Adding their estimates of cumulative annual global CO2 emissions (by converting their carbon numbers to CO2) from land use and land cover changes, based on data in that publication, to the sum of annual emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production shows that it exceeds the observed CO2 levels both before and after 1950, including the entire period from 1820 to 2018. Thus, your assertion that the sum of human CO2 emissions before 1950 was less than the observed CO2 level is false, as is the conclusion you drew from the pre-1950 data.
The IPCC has also analyzed the effect of land use and land cover change on CO2 emissions. Chapter 6 of its Working Group I Third Assessment Report contains a figure of published data on estimated global CO2 emissions from land use and land cover change for the period of 1750 to around 2008 (Figure 6.10, p. 491). All the estimates of global CO2 emissions from land use and land cover change in that figure show an increasing trend in annual emissions from 1750 to 1850 and additional and more variable annual emissions after that. Adding the sum of even the minimum estimates of annual emissions in that figure to the sum of emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production also shows that the total exceeds the observed CO2 levels in atmospheric CO2 for the entire period from 1750 to 2018.
According to your Figures 1 and 10, the sum of human CO2 emissions in excess of 280 ppm prior to 1840 was zero, which means you are simply assuming, albeit incorrectly, that there were no human CO2 emissions before then and that the only source of human emissions of CO2 is, and has been, from fossil fuel combustion and cement production. Common sense should tell you those are preposterous and false assumptions. Both the pre- and post-1950 data on human emissions in your Figures 1 and 10 are incorrect. And the conclusion you drew from the pre-1950 data is false because the sum of human CO2 emissions, including those resulting from land use and land cover change, has exceeded the observed CO2 level both before and after 1950.
This means that nature, i.e., the land and oceans combined, has been a net global sink of atmospheric CO2, not a net source for the entire time period covered in your Figures 1 and 10. It also means that anthropogenic CO2 emissions alone are large enough to fully account for the observed global rise in atmospheric CO2 above 280 ppm since the industrial era began. The corrected sum of human CO2 emissions is fully consistent with IPCC’s core theory about the cause of rising atmospheric CO2. So, because the emissions data in Figure 1 are incorrect, you have not disproven that theory.
Lastly, while you correctly state that the measured CO2 levels in your Figure 1 were less than the sum of human emissions after 1950, you fail to offer any interpretation of the post-1950 data, as if it is somehow unimportant or irrelevant to your interpretation of the data in that figure. You simply say that IPCC’s core theory was wrong at least before 1950. But what about after 1950? I suspect the reason you fail to say anything about what the post-1950 data means is that it would force you to contradict what you concluded from the inaccurate pre-1950 emissions data. So, do you just avoid interpreting that data in order to steer clear of any self-contradiction? If there’s some other reason, what is it? You can’t cherry pick only the data that conveniently matches what you want to believe and remain silent about the other data that clearly contradicts your belief. Your advisors in graduate school surely didn’t advise such a practice.
Jerry Elwood,
You conclude your long comment by saying to Ed Berry,
“Lastly, while you correctly state that the measured CO2 levels in your Figure 1 were less than the sum of human emissions after 1950, you fail to offer any interpretation of the post-1950 data, as if it is somehow unimportant or irrelevant to your interpretation of the data in that figure. You simply say that IPCC’s core theory was wrong at least before 1950. But what about after 1950? I suspect the reason you fail to say anything about what the post-1950 data means is that it would force you to contradict what you concluded from the inaccurate pre-1950 emissions data. So, do you just avoid interpreting that data in order to steer clear of any self-contradiction? If there’s some other reason, what is it? You can’t cherry pick only the data that conveniently matches what you want to believe and remain silent about the other data that clearly contradicts your belief. Your advisors in graduate school surely didn’t advise such a practice.”
Your paragraph which I have quoted falsely accuses Ed Berry of a malpractice which YOU have conducted. In that paragraph you have chosen to “cherry pick only the data that conveniently matches what you want to believe and remain silent about the other data that clearly contradicts your belief”. I provide this explanation of your error which claims coincidence has similar importance to refutation..
The IPCC provides its time series of anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
If that data series contradicts “the IPCC’s core theory” for the period pre-1950
then
there is no reason to think the data series coinciding with “the IPCC’s core theory” in some other parts of the time series is other than coincidence.
Your error is reminiscent of Ben Santer’s infamous claim to have found a “discernible human influence on global climate”: that claim lasted less than a year before it was discredited in the formal literature,
Richard
Dear Jerry,
Your comment, while entirely wrong, helped me improve my preprint.
Here is the explanation that I just added to my preprint.
“IPCC (2013, p 486) Table 6.1 shows IPCC’s cumulative PgC flow from Land to Atmosphere for the years 1750 to 2011 as 30 +/- 45 PgC. This is the same as in IPCC’s Figure 6.1 shown in Figure 2.”
“IPCC’s Table 6.1 shows the PgC per year from 1990 to 2011. Simple addition shows the cumulative PgC released by these flows from1990 to 2011 is 42 PgC, which exceeds IPCC’s total of 30 PgC from 1750 to 2011. Therefore, according to IPCC data, there is no carbon flow from Land to Atmosphere until 1990.”
According to the IPCC, there is no basis to add the land use effect to the human-caused carbon emissions until after 1990. Maybe the IPCC will adjust its data in its next report, but for now, Figure 1 indeed proves the core theory is wrong using IPCC’s own data. Therefore, your comment has no relevance to Figures 1 and 10.
You suggest that I neglected adding the annual data for human carbon emissions beginning in 1750. Jerry, you can download my spreadsheet if you wish, or you can run the sums yourself from the data. Either way, you will find that the sum of human carbon emissions is virtually zero until after 1860, as Figure 1 shows.
So, if you wish to claim my simple additions of annual data are “preposterous,” I suggest you first do the sums yourself. These calculations are very simple. In fact, when Will Happer checked all my calculations in Preprint #3, he began with the original data and found his calculations agreed with mine to the second decimal place.
I fixed the last sentence in this paragraph to make it clear to those who understand the scientific method that says it takes only one contradiction to prove a theory is wrong.
“The measured CO2 level is greater than the “Sum of human CO2” before 1950, which proves natural carbon increased the CO2 level before 1950. So, the core theory is wrong before 1950 which means the core theory is wrong period.”
Lastly (to reference your last paragraph where you begin with Lastly), since the data in Figure 1 prove the core theory is false before 1950, it is also false after 1950. It takes only one failure to prove a theory is false. Good behavior cannot absolve a bad theory of its former sins.
Dear Ed,
I don’t believe I am wrong. Admittedly, the land to atmosphere numbers in IPCC’s Table 6.1 are not clearly explained in the Table legend or the footnotes. And some of the explanations of the numbers are somewhat counterintuitive. So, it’s easy to misunderstand and misinterpret what they are. You have to read the text carefully to understand them and what they mean.
The 30 Pg C from land to atmosphere is not the cumulative gross carbon emissions from land use change over the period of 1750 to 2011. Instead, it’s the amount of carbon actually in the atmosphere in 2011 that can be attributed to the effect of carbon emissions from land use change alone over that period of time. You can look at it this way in terms of simple carbon budgeting: The observed concentration of atmospheric CO2 in 2011 would have been 14 ppm lower than measured were it not for carbon emissions from land use change over the period from 1750 to 2011. It would have been almost 85 ppm higher in 2011 than observed if all of the carbon emitted from land use change from 1750 to 2011 had remained in the atmosphere.
To calculate the sum of human carbon emissions from land use change, you have to use estimates of the gross emissions, not the net. According to Table 6.1, gross carbon emissions from land use change from 1750 to 2011 was 180 pG.
The IPCC defines gross fluxes of carbon from land use change as “…the individual fluxes from multiple processes involved in land use change that can be either emissions to or removals from the atmosphere occurring at different time scales. As the footnote in the table says, the estimate is from a “bookkeeping land use change flux accounting model. That is why the 180 pG number in Table 6.1 is labeled “Net land use change”. It doesn’t mean net carbon emissions from land use change. It means the estimated gross carbon emissions over that period from net land use changes that either remove or emit carbon to and from the atmosphere.
To quote the text on page 486, “Land use change activities, mainly deforestation, has released an additional 180 ± 80 PgC (Table 6.1).” So, the IPCC text is clear that the 180 pG carbon number is the estimated gross flux from land use change. If all of that carbon had remained in the atmosphere, the concentration of atmospheric CO2 in 2011 would have been almost 85 ppm higher than it was at that time, assuming, of course, that all other things remain the same.
If you use the gross flux, instead of the net flux ,of carbon emissions over the period of 1750 to 2018 from land use change and add it to the gross emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production, then the combined sum of cumulative human CO2 emissions exceeds the observed CO2 level before and after 1950. So, I don’t believe I am wrong.
I’ll await your response.
Dear Jerry,
To allow others to follow or enter our discussion of Figure 1, I added IPCC’s Table 6.1 at the end of my post (way up there.)
To summarize our discussion:
Figure 1 makes a legitimate challenge to IPCC’s core theory because IPCC’s ice-core data show the CO2 level is greater than the sum of human carbon emissions from burning carbon fuel and cement production before 1950.
You make a legitimate challenge to Figure 1 by asserting that carbon emissions from land-use change may explain the difference between the two curves.
Figure 2 (IPCC’s Figure 6.1) shows the net CO2 emissions from land-use changes totaled 30 PgC by about 2010.
The “Land-to-atmosphere flux” row in Table 6.1 shows most of this 30 PgC was added after 1990, leaving not enough carbon to explain the difference in the two curves before 1950.
You argue, using the “Net land-use change” row in IPCC’s Table 6.1, that this row shows enough annual PgC emissions to explain the difference in the curves.
Here is what (I think) we agree on:
• We use data from IPCC (2013) for this discussion.
• The 30 PgC added 14 ppm to the 2011 CO2 level.
• If all the carbon emitted from “Net land-use change” had remained in the atmosphere, it would have added 185 PgC (82 ppm) to the atmosphere.
• “Net land-use change” equals the gross flux of carbon into the atmosphere.
• “Residual land sink” equals the return of the gross flux carbon from the atmosphere.
Here is my summary argument:
We are concerned about how much CO2 the “land-to-atmosphere” flux added to the atmosphere before 1950.
Figure 2 shows the accumulated added carbon is 30 PgC. This 30 PgC is found in Table 6.1 in the row “Land-to-atmosphere flux.” Therefore, we should use this Table 6.1 row to estimate the annual flow of CO2 from land to atmosphere.
This 30 PgC row shows the average annual fluxes for the decades 1980, 1990, and 2000. Most of the annual flux occurred after 1990 and very little before 1990.
The partitioned “Net land-use change” is reduced annually by the “Residual land sink. Table 6.1 shows this sink almost equaled the inflow until after 1990. So, the 180 PgC had little effect on the CO2 level until after 1990.
Thank you for your challenge.
I admit I was lucky on this one. Had IPCC’s Table 6.1 showed most land-use CO2 was added to the atmosphere before 1950 rather than after 1950, I would have had to remove my argument related to Figure 1.
Ed,
First, thanks for allowing me the opportunity to respond.
We do agree on a few things, but still disagree in a significant way on others.
First, we agree that the net effect of land use changes since 1750 has added 30Gt C (14 ppm CO2) to the atmosphere. But the net effect of land use change on carbon emissions is not the same as the cumulative carbon emissions from land use changes since 1750. I trust you understand the distinction between the two.
The cumulative amount of carbon emitted to the atmosphere from land use changes since 1750 is 180 Pg, not 30 pG. It’s the Land to Atmosphere flux number in Table 6.1. That number represents the total net flux of carbon between land and atmosphere due to land use changes over that period.
It has two components. A net source of carbon from land use change (180 pgC) and a net terrestrial sink, referred to in Table 6.1 as the Residual Land Sink (-160 PgC). This is why Table 6.1 partitions the Land-to-atmosphere flux into its source and sink components. The Residual Land Sink (-160 Pg C) is less than the Land to Atmosphere source (180 Pg C) over the period from 1750 to 2011, so the total net flux between land and atmosphere from land use change is a net source to the atmosphere of 30 PgC. The Residual Land Sink number is based on estimates of carbon flux into terrestrial systems not affected by land use changes over the period.
The IPCC text is clear and unambiguous about what the 180 PgC number is in several places. First, on page 486 of Chapter 6, the text reads:
“Between 1750 and 2011, the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil and gas flaring) and the production of cement have released 375 ± 30 PgC (1 PgC = 1015 gC) to the atmosphere (Table 6. 1; Boden et al., 2011). Land use change activities, mainly deforestation, has released an additional 180 ± 80 PgC (Table 6.1). This carbon released by human activities is called anthropogenic carbon.”
On page p. 487, it reads:
“Terrestrial ecosystems that have not been affected by land use change since 1750, have accumulated 160 ± 90 PgC of anthropogenic carbon since 1750 (Table 6.1), thus not fully compensating the net CO2 losses from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere from land use change during the same period estimated of 180 ± 80 PgC (Table 6.1).”
And on p. 491, it reads:
“Over the 1750–2011 period, cumulative net CO2 emissions from land use change of 180 ± 80 PgC are estimated (Table 6.1).”
Based on this, it’s seems quite clear that IPCC’s estimate of the cumulative human emissions of carbon to the atmosphere from land use change over the period from 1750 to 2011 is 180 Pg.
The reason the Land to Atmosphere flux number in Table 6.1 is not exactly the same as the difference between the net land use change number and the residual land sink number is that the estimates come from different methods and sources. So, while the difference between the two numbers is not internally consistent, it’s not a large difference (20 vs 30 PgC).
I also don’t agree that IPCC’s Figure 6.1 shows the net CO2 emissions from land use changes total 30 Pg C by about 2010. The time series of data in that figure is net annual carbon emissions from land use change, not cumulative emissions. You have to add the annual emissions before 2010 to get the cumulative net emissions by 2010. That number is certainly greater than 30 PgC.
I also don’t agree with your conclusions that most of the annual flux of carbon to the atmosphere from land use change occurred after 1990 and very little occurred before then. The basis of your conclusion is that cumulative emissions of carbon from land use change from 1750 to 2011 is only 30 Pg. But, the correct number to use to estimate the flow of carbon to the atmosphere from land use change before and after 1990 is 180 Pg C, not 30. Based on the 180 pGC number and the annual flux numbers in the four decadal columns of Table 6.1, it’s obvious that most (131 Pg ) of the 180 pG of carbon emitted to the atmosphere from land use change occurred before 1990, not after.
So, based on the numbers in IPCC’s Table 6.1, Figure 6.10 and the IPCC text, the correct cumulative carbon emissions from land use changes over the 1750 to 2011 period is 180 Pg, not 30 Pg. I hope we can agree on this.
This means that total human carbon emissions from land use change, fossil fuel combustion, and cement production exceeded observed CO2 levels both before and after 1950. Because the emissions data in Figure 1 of your preprint are incorrect, the conclusion you deduce from the pre-1950 data is wrong.
Dear Jerry,
I deleted my last comment because it contained an assumption, namely, that the cumulative value must have the same sign as its decadal components. That is not a valid assumption because we do not have decadal components before 1980.
In addition, the relative value of the Land-to-atmosphere flux is small while its error values are large. So, it is inconsequential to my Preprint #3 and its inclusion distracts from the main parts of my preprint.
You can see how I treat this subject in my Preprint. I removed my claim that the values prove the core theory is wrong because this claim is not important to relevant to my preprint. Yet, I still use Figure 1 to rebut IPCC’s claim that the core theory is true.
Thank you for your comments.
Dear Ed,
I was prepared to post comments on your earlier post, but since you took them down, I will only comment here on the recent changes you made in both the text of your preprint and Figure 1.
First, you state in your preprint that it focuses only on IPCC’s core theory — that human emissions have caused all (or most) of the increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1750. Further, you claim that your preprint falsifies that theory. But you’ve changed the title of your preprint so that what you now mean by human carbon emissions is only fossil carbon emissions, rather than total human carbon, i.e., the sum of fossil carbon and land use change carbon emissions. And while you removed text that said the pre-1950 data in Figure 1 disproves the core theory, you do say that “human carbon emissions from burning carbon fuels and producing cement are not enough to have caused the measured increase in atmospheric CO2 before 1950, even assuming all human carbon emission were to say in the atmosphere, which cannot happen.” While the statement is technically correct, it’s also highly misleading, at best, because it suggests that the measured increase in CO2,before 1950 can’t have been caused by human CO2 emissions, when in fact, human carbon emissions do account for the observed increase in CO2 before and after 1950.
In your preprint, you state that CO2 emissions from land use change may have added enough CO2 to make up the difference between the cumulated human emissions and the ice-core CO2. However, you state in your latest comments that the land-to-atmosphere flux due to land use change is “…inconsequential to my Preprint #3”, and including it “…distracts from the main parts of my preprint.” If, as you state, the focus of your preprint is on IPCC’s core theory about human CO2 emission causing the increase in atmospheric CO2, why is excluding human emissions from land use change “inconsequential” and a “distraction” when data show that the combined sum of human carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and land use change before 1950 exceeds observed CO2 levels?
You comment that the errors in the land-to-atmosphere flux for 1750 to 2011 in IPCC’s Table 6.1 are too large and too questionable to provide good information before 1950. But I don’t understand what you mean by ‘good information’. Is there a minimum level of uncertainty that meets your requirement for ‘good information’? The uncertainty of the land-to-atmosphere flux from land use change for the 1750-2011 period is 180 ± 80 PgC (IPCC’s Table 6.1). That level of uncertainty doesn’t get you to a land use change flux of zero. But based on the existing human emissions data in your figure, you are still assuming it was zero before and after 1950.
There is published evidence that land use change was a more important human source of carbon emissions than fossil burning before 1959. According to Friedlingstein et al. (Global Carbon Budget, 2020, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12: 3269-3340), human carbon emissions for the 1750-2019 period was 700 ± 75 GtC, and 36% of it was from land use change, the remainder from fossil fuel burning. But of the 255 Gt C emitted from land use change over that period, most of it (170 Pg or 67 %) was emitted before 1959. In contrast, only 18% (80Pg) of the 445 Pg ±20 of fossil carbon emissions over the 1750-2019 period occurred before 1959. So, land use change emissions actually exceeded fossil carbon emissions by 90 Pg before 1959, and almost certainly by a somewhat lesser amount before 1950.
A calculated average annual emission rate from land use change over the 1750-1959 period, based on dividing the cumulative land use emission by the number of years (209), yields an annual emission rate of ~0.8 Pg C per year. This rate yields a cumulative land use change emission from 1750 to 1950 of approximately 162 Pg C, equivalent to 76 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere in excess of the 280 ppm in 1950. According to your Figure 1, cumulative CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production alone over the same period was equivalent to less than 40 ppm above 280 ppm.
So, if carbon emissions from land use change prior to 1950 are added to those from fossil fuel burning and cement production in your Figure 1, the total far exceeds the observed CO2 levels before 1950, and even more after, relative to what your post-1950 data in that figure shows. And if the emissions data in that figure are corrected to include land use change emissions, both the pre- and post-1950 data will be consistent with IPCC’s core theory. Those emission are certainly not “inconsequential” relative to either total human carbon emissions or to demonstrating that the data are consistent with IPCC’s core theory.
The other change you have made is the addition of some of Ernst Beck’s CO2 data to Figure 1. It’s most unfortunate that you decided to include that data because it’s not relevant to measures of background CO2 levels. By background, I mean measurements from samples collected in the well-mixed atmosphere above the planetary boundary and inversion layer.
You say that Beck’s data show much higher CO2 levels than those reconstructed from ice cores, as if comparing the two time-series of data is appropriate. But it isn’t because Beck’s data is definitionally different from both the ice core data and the Mauna Loa CO2 data in that figure. Thus, comparing it with those data and with the observed CO2 level data is both highly misleading and inappropriate.
I’m not challenging the accuracy of Beck’s data. What I am saying is that his CO2 data are not measures of background CO2 levels because all of his samples were taken at or near ground level in the planetary boundary layer where CO2 levels vary widely and relatively rapidly due to both variation in meteorological conditions, especially wind, and local CO2 sources and sinks, including photosynthesis, plant and microbial respiration, local emissions from industrial and residential sources, automotive traffic, etc. Some of Beck’s samples were taken in at least one urban area where local automotive emissions affect CO2 levels.
As an atmospheric physicist, you surely know that ground-level emission sources and sinks can and do have a large effect on the concentration of atmospheric constituents, including CO2, in air below the planetary boundary layer. Thus, it’s surprising that you would use Beck’s CO2 data as valid measures of background CO2 levels. Including his data in Figure 1 begs the obvious question of what plausible natural CO2 sources and sinks would account for the very large and relatively rapid increases and decreases in global atmospheric CO2 levels reflected in that time series of data.
In addition to including Beck’s data, you cite results from papers by Kouwenberg, reporting that proxy measurements of CO2 levels, based on the density of stomates on needles from trees, showed that CO2 increased to over 350 ppm during the last 1200 years. But stomate density is also not an accurate measure of CO2 level in the well mixed atmosphere. Leaves and needles on trees grow within the planetary boundary layer of the atmosphere where they are typically exposed to elevated and more variable CO2 levels than those in the well mixed atmosphere above the boundary layer. For this reason, estimated CO2 levels that are based on stomate density of tree leaves and needles are not an accurate proxy measure of CO2 levels in the well mixed atmosphere.
You say if Beck, Kouwenberge and other authors you cite are correct about CO2 levels in the past being greater than those measured from air in ice cores, then human carbon emissions could not have caused all the CO2 increase above 280 ppm and the core theory is wrong. But the data in at least Beck’s and Kouwenberg papers are not measures of CO2 in the well mixed atmosphere. Hence, their results are not evidence that IPCC’s core theory wrong.
I’m appreciate your making some changes in your preprint, but I still find the changes you made in the text do not solve the Figure 1 problems, and in fact, the addition of Beck’s data to it only makes it worse.
Jerry Elwood,
You write to Ed Berry,
“You say if Beck, Kouwenberge and other authors you cite are correct about CO2 levels in the past being greater than those measured from air in ice cores, then human carbon emissions could not have caused all the CO2 increase above 280 ppm and the core theory is wrong. But the data in at least Beck’s and Kouwenberg papers are not measures of CO2 in the well mixed atmosphere. Hence, their results are not evidence that IPCC’s core theory wrong.”
and
“By background, I mean measurements from samples collected in the well-mixed atmosphere above the planetary boundary and inversion layer.”
Sorry, but your assertions are incorrect and inconsistent.
The ice core data are obtained from CO2 trapped in ice as it formed below “the planetary boundary. and inversion layer”. Hence, your objection to the data of “Beck, Kouwenberge and other authors” also applies to the ice core data which you choose to accept. A complete refutation of your assertions is provided by you using that inconsistent excuse for you choosing to ignore the bulk of the pertinent data.
And if that were not enough, then it needs to be noted that there are no independent confirmatory data for the ice core indications. The importance of the data sets provided by “Beck, Kouwenberge and other authors” cited by Berry are that they are independent measurements obtained using different methods which are all confirmatory of CO2 levels in the past being greater than those measured from air in ice cores.
As for the purported “well mixed atmosphere”, the stomata data provided by Kouwenberge certainly provide that. The plants grow leaves with stomata which indicate the average atmospheric CO2 concentration in the growing season of the previous year.
In summation, your objections to Berry’s analysis are invalid and have no foundation.
Richard
You use the term “well mixed atmosphere” with respect to CO2 levels. I suggest that it is not possible to have CO2 well mixed with nitrogen and oxygen because of it’s much greater molecular weight. A small amount is dissolved in water and is carried into the upper atmosphere by water vapor but it STAYS IN SOLUTION, the mixture in air does not change. The same science would apply to the oceans where the CO2 is in solution. Any additional CO2, being lighter than water would be expelled to the atmosphere.
So it is not possible to acidify the oceans. If it were we would also see it in fresh water lakes and reservoirs. Drinking water reservoirs are monitored for PH and temperature. No problem yet.
Dear Jerry,
Thank you for your comment. As a result, I further clarified my preprint and its title.
You wrote:
“By background, I mean measurements from samples collected in the well-mixed atmosphere above the planetary boundary and inversion layer.”
“What I am saying is that his [Beck’s] CO2 data are not measures of background CO2 levels because all of his samples were taken at or near ground level in the planetary boundary layer where CO2 levels vary widely and relatively rapidly due to both variation in meteorological conditions, especially wind, and local CO2 sources and sinks, including photosynthesis, plant and microbial respiration, local emissions from industrial and residential sources, automotive traffic, etc. Some of Beck’s samples were taken in at least one urban area where local automotive emissions affect CO2 levels.”
“You surely know that ground-level emission sources and sinks can and do have a large effect on the concentration of atmospheric constituents, including CO2, in air below the planetary boundary layer.”
The last time I checked, “below the planetary boundary layer” is underground.
You confuse the planetary boundary layer with an inversion. An inversion stops the mixing of air vertically.
The planetary boundary layer is the well-mixed layer where I once circled a sailplane in a thermal that went up at 4000 feet per minute to 16,000 feet where I purposely flew out of the thermal because I had no oxygen tank.
The planetary boundary layer is the well-mixed layer where I have many times raced a small sailboat in winds above 20 knots.
Measurements on the ground in the well-mixed boundary layer are valid measurements of CO2 concentration.
Turnbull uses D14C data from Wellington at sea level. Hua combined seven ground-based data sets of D14C and the data from all these places are almost the same, proving that you cannot simply throw out Beck’s CO2 data based on elevation or location. I assume Turnbull, Hua, and Beck were intelligent enough to reject data taken under an inversion or directly downwind of a strong CO2 source.
Finally, Beck’s data are not sporadic in time. The data rise and fall uniformly over 5-year time scales, indicating they are valid measurements of CO2 levels.
Stomata data is the essence of valid CO2 levels. Trees are in the well-mixed layer, just like your ice cores except when they are under inversions that occur at their locations. Tree stomata give more accurate CO2 levels than ice cores.
On the flip side, you have no independent checks on the validity of CO2 reconstructions using ice cores. And you are ignoring the work of Jaworowski and Salby who show how ice cores do not produce valid CO2 reconstructions. Also, I realize there are arguments that support your position.
In conclusion, I appreciate your valuable comment. You helped me realize that the issues I inserted into Figure 1 distract from the message in my Preprint. Therefore, I removed these issues because they open a whole new discussion that is unnecessary in my Preprint.
NEW: Please see my separate comment below.
Jerry: You complain to Ed that because Beck’s data was taken close to the earth’s surface, that it automatically invalidates Beck’s data. That’s not true. As a meteorologist, I can assure you that molecules in the atmosphere are frequently “well mixed” within the atmospheric boundary layer to altitudes similar to the elevation of Mauna Loa. When, where and what days were Beck’s observations taken?
Also, many have proclaimed the arctic (Greenland) and Antarctic ( Vostok) ice core data is pristine and representative of what global concentrations would have been. That is also not true. The arctic and Antarctic regions are source regions of Continental Polar airmasses, especially in winter, where temperature inversions are nearly constant and very significant. This would have the opposite effect that concerns you about Beck’s measurements because the arctic and Antarctic inversions would shield the surface from the free-air exchange above the boundary and because they are not source regions for atmospheric CO2, the surface concentrations would be expected to be much lower than at latitudes away from Continental Polar airmass generation and majority of time influence, such as in the tropics or mid latitudes that are source regions for natural and human CO2 emissions.
Further, the very high Coriolis parameter that deflects southerly atmospheric winds at right angles and has a maximum at the poles. It takes a significantly higher pressure gradient to drive south wind into the poles at the same speed a comparative pressure gradient would at a more southerly latitude, and those winds in the arctic are very infrequent compared to elsewhere, away from the arctic.
Therefore, I conclude that your claims against Ed’s work are not valid. You are comparing apples to oranges in comparing ice cores to Mauna Loa, and it is likely Beck’s data is closer to what Mauna Loa data would have shown for the same periods.
Also, what’s with your statement about “countless electrons flowing back and forth across a hot wire with the same potential?” Would that be true if the circuit was DC? No. Even if you couldn’t compute the resistance in either case without a voltage drop, I’m not getting the logic. Increase the voltage across a constant resistance and you start getting a “heat leak”. What’s happening to that CO2 crossing a reservoir?
Jerry, a correction about what I said about Antarctica. The elevation of the Antarctic continent is very high, with an average elevation of 8,200 ft. MSL, so that makes a comparison of Antarctica CO2 more realistic with what is measured at Mauna Loa.
But the concern about atmospheric CO2 in places like the arctic compared to these locations remains the same.
New breakthrough for this Preprint #3 (Please note the time and date of this comment):
I inserted the most likely scenario from IPCC’s Table 6.1 values for the land-use effect into the physics model from 1750 to 2020. This applies IPCC’s e-times to its land-use effect values and allows carbon that the land-use effect adds to the atmosphere to flow to the surface ocean and deep ocean.
The result is the land-use effect adds only 1.26 ppm to the atmosphere as of 1950, proving that the land-use effect is NOT enough to explain Figure 1 and proving the Core Theory is wrong.
In addition, because the land-use effect begins to transfer carbon from the atmosphere to the land in 1990, according to IPCC Table 6.1, this reduces the human effect on atmospheric CO2 by 2020 from 33 ppm to 25.5 ppm.
These results are now in my Excel sheet and it will take me another day or so to show and explain these results in Preprint #3.
So, unless I find errors in this calculation, and I will check it carefully, this is a slam-dunk win that proves the Core Theory is wrong even according to Table 1.
Anyone who understands the calculations in my Excel spreadsheet can repeat these calculations.
Ed,
You indicated that because of some of my comments, you would add some changes to your preprint. I have read your latest version with the changes. But I regret telling you that your changes fail to resolve all the issues I raised in my earlier comments, and I find other serious errors in your preprint.
I realize your focus is on disproving IPCC’s core theory about human carbon causing the increase in atmospheric CO2. But I fail to see how you can disprove it by first changing IPCC’s definition of human carbon to one that excludes emissions from land-use change, and then justify your definition by willfully misinterpreting a number from IPCC’s AR5 report that is neither definitionally nor quantitatively the same as IPCC’s estimate of human carbon emissions from land use change.
Human carbon is the sum of carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning, cement production, and land-use change, and published estimates of the latter (which I previously cited) show that it was a larger source of human carbon emissions than fossil fuel burning from 1750 to the 1950s. Unfortunately, you seem unwilling to accept that or consider any scientific literature containing results that cast doubt or contradict statements and data in your preprint.
Your statement that land-use change being a dominant part of the increase in CO2 no longer applies in 2020 is not only irrelevant to the issue of the pre-1950 emissions from land-use change, but also misrepresents IPCC’s statement that you quote from the Executive Summary of its 2013 report. Regardless of the human source of carbon, when its emitted, it’s part of the cumulative emissions of human carbon thereafter.
The sentence you quote from IPCC’s Executive Summary says “…the increase in CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning and those arising from land-use change are the dominant cause of the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.” It doesn’t specify a time period of the increase, but it does say emissions from both land-use change and fossil fuel burning.
In my previous comments, I cited results in a 2020 paper that shows the estimated cumulative carbon emissions from land-use change over the 1750-1959 period was 170 Pg. Moreover, the cumulative sum of human carbon emissions exceeded observed CO2 levels both before and after 1950. So, excluding land use change emissions from both your definition of total human carbon and your Figure 1 is unjustified and indefensible.
You are correct that Table 6.1 does show the “Land-to-atmosphere” flux for 1750-2011 is 30 ± 45 PgC. But you are incorrect about what the IPCC means by Land-to-atmosphere flux in that table. As I said in one of my earlier posts, the 30 PgC Land-to-Atmosphere number in Table 6.1 and the “-30” number for “Land” in IPCC Figure 6.1 is not the total carbon emitted to the atmosphere from land-use change over that period. It’s the cumulative change in carbon in the terrestrial reservoir globally since 1750. In other words, it’s the net effect of land-use change on the amount of carbon in the terrestrial reservoir globally, i.e., the sum of carbon lost from terrestrial systems from land-use change and carbon gained in terrestrial systems not affected by land-use change since 1750. There is no ambiguity about what the IPCC means by it.
The -30 in Figure 6.1 means terrestrial ecosystems globally were a net source of carbon to the atmosphere over the 1750-2011 period from land-use changes. The legend of Figure 6.1 specifically says: “Red numbers in the reservoirs denote cumulative changes of anthropogenic carbon over the Industrial Period 1750–2011 (column 2 in Table 6.1).” So, the “30” number in Fig. 6.1 and Table 6.1 are definitionally the same. But the net amount of carbon lost from terrestrial systems globally from land-use change is not the same as the cumulative amount of carbon emitted from land-use change.
In an earlier post, I also quoted several text sentences from Chapter 6 of the IPCC report which explicitly state that land-use change activities, mainly deforestation, has caused the release of 180 PgC to the atmosphere over the 1750-2011period. Table 6.1 in Chapter 6 of the IPCC report is cited as the source of that number. Release, in this context, means carbon emitted to the atmosphere.
I recognize that you want the cumulative emission number for land-use change to be as small as possible so that you can claim that it’s an insignificant source of human carbon emissions and justify why you are excluding it from your definition. But your claim is simply not consistent with the published estimates of carbon emissions from land-use change, including the IPCC’s.
As I also mentioned in an earlier post, there is both a source and sink component to quantifying the net effect of land use change on human carbon fluxes from terrestrial systems globally. The IPCC’s 2013 estimate was that land-use change caused the emission of 180 Pg carbon to the atmosphere from 1750 to 2011. And over that period, other environmental changes such as CO2 fertilization, nitrogen deposition, reforestation, abandonment of agriculture lands, etc. have increased carbon uptake on some land, increasing the terrestrial carbon sink in some terrestrial systems. This terrestrial sink, estimated at -160 PgC, is referred to as the Residual Land Sink in IPCC Table 6.1. But this residual sink has only partially offset the 180 pG of carbon emissions from lands affected by land-use changes.
In other words, the total net flux of carbon between the land and atmosphere from land-use change alone over the 1750-2011 period is a global net source of carbon to the atmosphere of 30Pg. That is, as previously stated, the -30 “Land” number in IPCC’s Figure 6.10 and the Land-to-Atmosphere Flux number in IPCC’s Table 6.1. It is the amount of carbon lost from the terrestrial biosphere globally over the period from land-use change. So again, the total amount of carbon emitted to the atmosphere from land-use change over the same period is estimated to have been 180 PgC.
I hope you will now accept both what IPCC’s estimate is and why the 30 Pg number is not its estimate of cumulative human carbon emissions from land use change from 1750 to 2011. So, please stop citing and using the 30 PgC number as IPCC’s estimate of the cumulative carbon emissions from land use change over this period. IPCC’s estimate is 180PgC.
You suggest that because there are no decadal data on net land-use flux of carbon to the atmosphere before 1980, any estimated fluxes before then are “anybody’s guess”. But impugning those estimates as “anybody’s guess” is unjustified and unwarranted. While there are uncertainties in those estimates, they are certainly not guesses, but instead are based on land use and land use change data, dynamic global vegetation models, and book keeping models for land use change emissions. It’s ironic that you impugn those estimates as guesses, when you just assume, without citing any evidence, that there was little or no carbon emissions from land-use change before and after 1950.
You state that carbon transfers before 1980 are irrelevant to your preprint because those emissions are no longer in the atmosphere today. This is an odd statement, to say the least. What does the loss of human carbon that was emitted to the atmosphere before 1980 have to do with the cumulative emissions of human carbon to the atmosphere as of today? Carbon emissions before 1980 are certainly relevant to the cumulative emissions as of 1980 and beyond. You deduce, albeit incorrectly, that human can’t have caused the observed increase in CO2 before 1950 because cumulative human emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production was less than observed CO2 levels. That some of that carbon was lost from the atmosphere before and after 1950 doesn’t change the fact that it was emitted and contributed to the cumulative sum of carbon emissions both before 1950 and as of today and beyond.
Your claim that carbon emissions from land change prior to 1950 weren’t large enough to make up the difference between cumulative emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production and observed CO2 levels is false. It’s not supported by published estimates that I have cited on land use change emissions before 1950. Again, your changing the definition of human emissions to include only emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production doesn’t alter the fact that total human emissions, including those from land-use change, exceeded observed CO2 levels both before and after 1950.
Your claim that those emissions from land use prior to 1980 are no longer in the atmosphere today presumably stems from your estimates of short e-times of atmospheric 14CO2 and 12CO2, based on the post-bomb decline in ∆14CO2. But you mistake the rapid post-bomb decline of ∆14 as a measure of the e-time of 14C and 12C, and then incorrectly deduce that lifetime of human CO2 in the atmosphere is short. This error, which others have also made, is pointed out and discussed in Chapter 2, Section 2.1.4, pp. 85-86 of IPCC’s 2nd Assessment Report published in 2008. Your mistake stems from your misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the cause of the post-bomb decline of ∆14C, your misunderstanding the differences in dynamic behavior of 14CO2 and 12CO2, and your conflation of CO2 residence (or turnover) time with adjustment or relaxation time.
The time constant for the decline in ∆14C that you derived in your 2019 paper by adjusting two parameters to fit the data is simply an e-time of the decline of ∆14C over a limited period of the time series of data. It’s nothing more than that. It’s not a time constant for either the net or gross flux of 14CO2 or 12CO2 from the atmosphere. So, it’s not, itself, a measure of the turnover time or e-time of 14CO2 or 12CO2 in the atmosphere. You also repeat this mistake in Section 5.2 of your preprint.
Net and gross sinks of atmospheric radiocarbon have almost no effect on the ∆14C of carbon that remains in the atmosphere. This means the post-bomb decline of ∆14 is not a measure of the net uptake of either 14C or 12C from the atmosphere. The reason is that ∆14C of atmospheric CO2 is, by definition, the ratio of the mass of 14C to that of 12C in the atmosphere divided by the same ratio in a standard, i.e., a ratio of ratios. Thus, the ratio can change without any change in the concentration of one of the two carbon isotopes and the concentration of both isotopes can change without any change in the ratio.
Except for the small fractionation effect due to the mass difference between 14C and 12C, the uptake rate of the two isotopes into the ocean and biosphere is essentially the same. This effectively means that sinks of the two isotopes result in the ∆14C of the carbon that remains in the atmosphere staying essentially constant. So, the net uptake of 14C from the atmosphere alone is not the only cause of the post-bomb decline in ∆14 of atmospheric CO2. Thus, contrary to your claim, it’s not a measure of the e-time time of either 12CO2 or 14CO2 in the atmosphere. You should disabuse yourself of the belief that the rapid post-bomb decline of ∆14 in the atmosphere is evidence of a short turnover time of human CO2 in the atmosphere.
Your misunderstanding of both the cause of the post-bomb decline in ∆14C of atmospheric CO2 and what it means is also reflected in your 2019 paper. The cause of the decline includes isotopic dilution of radiocarbon from emissions of 14C-free CO2 from fossil fuel burning, exchange of CO2 between the atmosphere and the ocean and land of CO2 that has a lower ∆14C than that of the atmosphere, and mixing of radiocarbon into the ocean and land. But in your 2019 paper, you state that “The decrease [in ∆14C] occurred because the bomb-caused 14C inflow became zero while the natural 14C inflow continued.” Based on this statement, the only way bomb 14C in the atmosphere would decline is from radioactive decay. But this is obviously false because the physical half-life of 14C is over 5700 years, which means radioactive decay of the isotope accounts for only a trivial fraction of the observed post-bomb decline of ∆14C in the atmosphere.
In Section 5.2 of your preprint, you state “Figure 17 shows D14C data and a “14C ratio”. This is unclear because D14C (∆14C) is a ratio of 14C to 12C relative to the same ratio in a 14C standard. In the sentence explaining how your “14C ratio” was calculated, you say “the ratio of the CO2 level after 1970 divided by the CO2 level in 1970”? I assume you mean the ratio of the CO2 level after 1970 to that in 1970.
You state: “The 14CO2 e-time of 10 years means the 12CO2 e-time is less than 10 years, which negates the core theory.” But this is false. As discussed above, the 14CO2 e-time you calculated from the decline in your ratio is not the e-time of atmospheric 14CO2, and you can’t infer from it that the e-time of 12CO2 is shorter because there are other factors that cause the e-time of the two isotopes to be different.
You also seem to attribute the difference in the rate of decline of your ratio and ∆14C to the isotope effect. But this can’t be true because the mass difference between the two isotopes isn’t large enough to explain the difference between the two e-times you derived by adjusting time constants to fit the ∆14C data and your calculated ratio data.
Moreover, the difference between the decline in ∆14C and your calculated ratio is simply because your ratio accounts for only one of the causes of the change in ∆14C from 1970 to 2015. That cause is isotopic dilution from emissions of 14C-free CO2. But it doesn’t account for or explain the entire cause of the decline. Further, the rate of decline in your ratio is not a measure of the e-time of 14CO2 or 12CO2 in the atmosphere.
Your Figure 17 also shows that decline in your ratio slows and then stops after 1990 and then starts increasing after 2000, whereas ∆14C declines over the entire time series in the figure. But you are silent about why it slows and then increases. If one followed your logic and interpretation of the cause of changes in your ratio, the most logical conclusion would be that uptake of CO2 from the atmosphere must have stopped after 1990, and nature became a net source of atmospheric CO2 after 2000. But those would be false conclusions because it ignores the effect of changes in the isotopic disequilibrium between the atmosphere and the ocean and biosphere.
Emissions of 14C-free CO2 have reduced the ∆14C in the atmospheric to a level that has caused a reversal of the isotopic disequilibrium, causing the parts of the ocean and most if not all of the terrestrial biosphere to become a net global source of atmospheric 14CO2 even though both remain a net global sink of 12CO2. This was predicted to occur, and observational data comparing the ∆14C of atmospheric CO2 with that of exchangeable inorganic carbon in surface ocean water and exchangeable carbon in terrestrial systems now confirms that prediction.
You also provide no explanation of why your calculated e-time of 10 years doesn’t fit your data after the late 90s. What does this tell you about your calculated e-time of 14C after 1990 and the cause of both the decline and the increase in your ratio? Atmospheric CO2 continued to increase after 2000, but the post-2000 increase in your ratio can’t be due to increasing CO2 because it alone would cause your ratio to continue declining after 2000, rather than increase. So, please explain that.
To be clear, the post-2000 increase in your ratio is not from a new source of 14C; its bomb carbon that was previously absorbed into the ocean and terrestrial systems and is now reentering the atmosphere because of the reversal of the isotopic disequilibrium. There is almost continuous exchange of carbon between the atmosphere and the ocean and biosphere and the sign of the flux of 14C depends on the difference between the ∆14C of the atmosphere and that of inorganic carbon in the surface ocean and labile organic carbon in the terrestrial biosphere. Most of the bomb radiocarbon that entered the ocean is still in the ocean surface layer, which is contact with the atmosphere. And most of the bomb carbon in terrestrial systems is in organic carbon pools in soil and plants that have carbon turnover times ranging from several years to decades and longer.
I see that you have now removed Beck’s data from your Figure 1. So, there’s no need to comment on your defense of his data since none of it is in your preprint. I also see that you have removed text about stomate data. So, I won’t comment on your defense of that data either.
My apology for the extensive and detailed comments, but it’s important to make you aware of the errors and misinterpretations in your preprint. I don’t believe you can fix the errors in your latest version by simply adding, deleting, or rewriting a few sentences. The misinterpretation and misunderstanding of what the post-bomb changes in radiocarbon mean and what can be deduced from those changes is one of the most serious problems with your preprint.
You probably find my comments hypercritical, but I have always been a careful reviewer of scientific manuscripts and take it seriously, even when my review comments weren’t asked for. So, I offer them in that light, and hope you find them both constructive and instructive.
Dear Jerry,
Thank you very much for your extended and detailed comment. You do not have to apologize for your comment and I do not find it hypercritical.
I am in the process of rewriting my preprint and this is the perfect time to receive your review. I will attempt to address all the details in your comment.
Obviously, this rewrite will take me some time but no matter which way this falls out, I want you to know that I very much appreciate your extensive comments on my preprint.
There have been many land use changes over the years, some good, some bad. The interstate highway system took a lot of farm land out of production. Cutting back on CO2 emissions will not change that. Over the last 30 years, China has built new cities, moved millions of rural citizens into the new cities. That represents a major change in land use. I am not in a position to say if it was good or bad, but I am pretty certain that if I reduce my CO2 emissions to zero it will have no impact on land use.
Dear James,
Please recognize that my paper does NOT attempt to evaluate the results of land use change in CO2. My paper merely calculates the result of IPCC’s land use claims.
The interesting result is the carbon transferred from land to atmosphere due to land use changes has almost no effect on atmospheric CO2 because it quickly moves to the deep ocean, and it add no new carbon to the carbon cycle.
Dear Jerry,
Thank you very much for your review of the previous version of my paper. I believe my new August 12 version, now shown above, responds to all your comments.
I accept your argument to use net land use change as the data to evaluate its effects.
We continue to disagree on the meaning of D14C and 14C data. I hope my new explanation makes my argument more clearly.
This version has been thoroughly peer reviewed and just today was accepted for publication in Atmosphere.
Dear Ed,
Congratulations on your success in getting your paper approved for publication. It is a very fine paper, and I eagerly await holding a published copy of it in my hand.
However, I fail to anticipate the IPCC accepting the truth revealed by your work, and I hope passage of time will prove I am mistaken about this.
Richard
Hi Ed, great work and congratulations.
In simple layman’s terms how does this affect the IPCCs global warming predictions. If they assume 100% human CO2 emissions in their models instead of 25% would that translate to an error or over estimation of 300%.
Regards Ross
Dear Ross,
IPCC’s natural carbon cycle data show that human carbon emissions have caused only 2% and nature has caused about 75% of the increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1750. Yet all IPCC’s projections and climate model calculations ASSUME human carbon emissions have caused 100% of the increase.
This makes every proposed climate treaty and current climate laws irrelevant because they cannot achieve their stated purpose. It makes the alarmist climate politics invalid. It means even if we eliminated all human carbon emissions, nature would continue increasing the CO2 level.
It means it is time to drop the whole idea that we humans control the climate. It means it is time to eliminate human-centric thinking about climate and use true science-centric thinking about climate.
Ed,
(1) I read your revised preprint that’s been accepted for publication. While a few of the changes in it are responsive to some of my earlier comments, the current version doesn’t fix or eliminate all the major errors, misinterpretations, inconsistencies, and false inferences I identified. For example, your explanation and interpretations of D14C and radiocarbon data (Section 5.2) and the inferences you draw from that data are still incorrect, as is your continued claim that the turnover time of CO2 is the same as adjustment time. You say you hope your new explanation makes your argument more clearly. Unfortunately, there’s not anything new in your argument and it’s still wrong.
The title of your paper makes an extraordinary claim that demands extraordinary evidence to support. Unfortunately, the evidence provided in the paper fails that test. The only empirical evidence provided or cited in the paper is based on misinterpretations and false inferences. Your conclusion that the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 since the beginning of the industrial era is primarily a result of natural rather than human-caused emissions rests entirely on mistakes.
(2) The first mistake is your claim that adjustment time of atmospheric CO2 is the same as the residence time or turnover time of a molecule of CO2 in the atmosphere. In Section 5.2, you quote the IPCC as explaining why “adjustment time” equals turnover time when the level is far from its balance level because it is unaffected by other reservoirs. But that’s not what the IPCC says. Instead, it clearly states that where several reservoirs are involved in the exchange of a greenhouse gas or where its removal is not proportional to the total mass, the equality between turnover time and adjustment time doesn’t hold, which means they aren’t equal. Further, it says CO2 is an extreme example of this, explaining why CO2 turnover time doesn’t equal the adjustment time. So, contrary to your statement, the IPCC does not say the two things are equal when CO2 level is far from its balance level.
(3) A second mistake is your claim that CO2 turnover time, which you equate as adjustment time, is short, based on the fit of your physical model to the rapid post-bomb decline in D14C. You then incorrectly infer that it is a measure of the e-time or adjustment time of 12CO2. In its 2nd Assessment report, the IPCC points out why its incorrect to presume a low adjustment time of CO2 based on the rapid decline of ∆14C. It’s because the decline in ∆14C is not a measure of the adjustment time or e-time of atmospheric CO2. Your paper is based on this same mistake, which you also made in your 2019 paper.
(4) The only way to make your model predict that most (75%) of the CO2 increase is natural is to require a short CO2 adjustment time and net natural CO2 emissions that far exceed anthropogenic emissions. To make sure your model produces your result, you actually have to constrain it with the requirement that e-time of CO2 must be short (only 4 years) and natural CO2 must be 95 percent of atmospheric CO2. So, in effect, you are predetermining what your model predicts by these baseless and unrealistic constraints.
(5) Your model wouldn’t yield the result you want if CO2 adjustment time is long because that would mean small CO2 fluxes from human activities relative to the large natural gross exchange fluxes would explain the observed increase in atmospheric. So, to make sure the e-time or adjustment time is short, you incorrectly interpret D14C as an expression of 14C concentration, that the post-bomb decline in D14C is a measure of the net uptake of 12CO2 from the atmosphere, and that the rate of decline is a measure of the e-time, (which you incorrectly equate as adjustment time) of atmospheric CO2. But none of these interpretations and inferences are correct.
(6) Further, your suggestion of a plausible natural net CO2 source of a magnitude that far exceeds human emissions is neither credible nor consistent with any published scientific evidence. You speculate (and cite an unpublished source) that the natural source is net outgassing of CO2 from ocean warming and overturning of deep ocean water. But empirical evidence clearly shows the oceans are and have been a net global sink of atmospheric CO2, not a source. One source of such evidence is the Gruber et al (2019) paper, which you cite. But you cavalierly dismiss it and ignore its major findings and conclusions by falsely claiming that it’s based entirely on an incorrect assumption. I have more to say about the Gruber et al. paper below.
I will go through the data, claims, and evidence you provide as evidence to support your conclusion, explaining why it doesn’t support the conclusion.
(7) First, your implicit assumption or belief that the post-bomb decline of D14C is measure of the e-time (and adjustment time) of 12CO2 is false. This stems from your misinterpretation of both what D14C is and the cause of its post-bomb decline. You incorrectly interpret D14C as an expression of 14C concentration in the atmosphere. And you interpret its rate of decline after atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons ceased as a measure of the net rate of loss of both 14C and 12C from the atmosphere. But your interpretations of D14C and the cause of its decline are demonstrably false.
(8) First, D14C (or ∆14C) is not an expression of 14C concentration in the atmosphere. In both chemical and radiochemical terms, concentration refers specifically to the mass or activity of a constituent, such as 14C, per unit volume of air, or solute, or mass of a solid material. It’s clear from the two references you cite (Hua et al. 2013 and Turnbull et al. 2017), as the sources of the D14C in your paper, that post-bomb radiocarbon data is neither the mass nor activity of 14C per unit volume of air. Instead, it’s the age- and fractionation-corrected deviation in the ratio of 14C to 12C relative to the same ratio in a 14C standard multiplied by 1000. In other words, it’s a unitless ratio of ratios of the mass of the two isotopes, not a concentration.
(9) It’s standard practice in isotope geochemistry to multiply the measured ratio of isotope ratios by 1000 because the ratios in environmental and geological samples are so small. For example, the absolute concentration of 14C in the atmosphere (expressed as mass per unit volume of air) is almost six orders of magnitude less than that of 12C. So, to avoid reporting ∆14C (what you call D14C) data with multiple decimals, the measured ratios are multiplied by 1000. This is where the per mil designation comes from in expressing ∆14C numbers. You explicitly state that “Their 14C data are in units of D14C per mil…”, meaning the ∆14C data of Hua et al. and Turnbull et al. So, what you call D14C in your paper is the ∆14C data in those two cited papers. And neither D14C nor ∆14C are expressions of the concentration of 14C in the atmosphere.
(10) In 1970, the ∆14C (or D14C) of atmospheric CO2 was ~500 per mil. This means 14C in atmospheric CO2 in 1970 was enriched by 50 percent relative to the amount of 14C in the 14C standard. It doesn’t mean the concentration of 14C in the atmosphere in 1970 was 500 parts per thousand by volume of air. Positive ∆14C values mean a sample is enriched in 14C relative to the standard, whereas negative values mean a sample is depleted in 14C relative to the standard.
I recognize the nomenclature for expressing radiocarbon data is somewhat confusing. It’s also true that ∆14C has been referred to (albeit incorrectly) in a few published papers as 14C content, concentration, or level. But such misnomers don’t alter the fact the D14C data in your paper are not expressions of 14C mass or activity per unit volume of air, or water, or any other material substance. So, I hope you would accept that D14C and∆14C are the same thing and are not expressions of 14C concentration.
(11) So, now to your interpretation of the cause of the post-bomb decline of D14C. Because it’s a ratio of 14C to 12C, changes in the concentration of either or both isotopes affect the measured D14C. D14C is a non-linear function of the 14C and CO2 concentration, and changes in it are obviously a non-linear function of changes in the concentration of either or both 14C and CO2. So, interpreting the cause of any changes in D14C requires knowing both how much the concentration of each isotope has changed and what the cause or causes of the respective changes are. This is especially true in interpreting the post-bomb changes because the production of 14C from atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons created what, in effect, was an unplanned transient radiotracer experiment of 14C simultaneously with the increasing emissions of 14C-free CO2 from fossil fuel burning and cement production. So, the cause of changes in both 14C and 12C have to be accounted for in interpreting the cause of observed changes in ∆14C.
(12) For your interpretation of the post-bomb decline in ∆14C as a measure of the e-time of 14C and 12C to be correct, you are implicitly (but incorrectly) assuming the decline was caused entirely by net uptake of 14C from the atmosphere and that 14C is a perfect analogue tracer of the uptake of 12CO2. So, you fit your model to the D14C data to derive an e-time of 16.5 years, and then mistakenly infer that it’s the e-time of 14C and 12C.
(13) As I explained in an earlier post, net uptake of 14C into the ocean and biosphere doesn’t alter the D14C (or ∆14C) of CO2 that remains in the atmosphere because the two isotopes are removed at the same rate except for the small difference caused by the isotope effect. So, the post-bomb decline in ∆14C could not have been caused only by net uptake of 14C from the atmosphere into the oceans and biosphere. Hence, the e-time you calculated from the post-bomb decline in D14C is not the e-time of either 14C or 12C; it’s only an e-time of D14C for a limited period of the post-bomb decline of D14C.
(14) This does not mean that net uptake of 14C didn’t cause some of the decline in D14C. The point is that it couldn’t have been the entire cause of the observed decline. The contributing causes of the long-term, post-bomb trend in ∆14C have been quantified in several papers. [See the 3 citations below] Results in these papers show the decline after atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons ceased was more rapid initially and then slowed. In other words, the rate of its post-bomb decline can’t be described by a single time constant. Further, the major contributing cause of the decline was emissions of 14C-free CO2 from fossil fuel combustion, while mixing of radiocarbon into the ocean was the second most important. Its importance, however, declined over time as radiocarbon in surface ocean water approached isotopic equilibrium with the atmosphere. And to be clear, mixing of 14C into the ocean caused some of the net loss of 14C from the atmosphere, but because of continuous exchange of CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, 14CO2 coming out of the ocean has a lower ∆14C than CO2 in the atmosphere until isotopic equilibrium between the ocean and atmosphere is reached. So, the net effect of this combined net uptake and exchange are contributing causes of only a portion of the reduction in the ∆14C of atmospheric CO2.
As Turnbull, et al. (2016 point out, the net flux of 14C between the ocean and biosphere is not a measure of the net CO2 flux because 14C flux is the product of the gross CO2 flux and the isotopic disequilibrium of 14C between the source and sink. The flux of radiocarbon can be positive or negative, depending on the sign of the isotopic disequilibrium. This means the ocean and biosphere can simultaneously be a net sink of atmospheric CO2 and a net source of 14C.
Graven, H.D., T.P. Guilderson, and R.F. Keeling. 2012. Observations of radiocarbon in CO2 at LaJolla, California, USA 19920-2007: Analysis of the long-term trend. J. Geophys. Res. 117: 14 pp.
Levin, I., T. Naegler, B. Kromer, M. Diehl, R. Francey, A. Gomez-Pelaez, P. Steele, D. Wagenbach, and D. Worthy. 2010. Observations and modeling of the global distribution and long-term trend of atmospheric 14CO2. Tellus, 62B: 26-46.
Turnbull, J.C., H Graven, and N.Y. Krakauer. 2016. Chapter 4: Radiocarbon in the Atmosphere. IN: Radiocarbon and Climate Change. E.A. Schuur, et al. (eds.) pp. 83-137. Springer Intl. Publ., Switzerland
(15) Results from these studies also show a net positive effect of the terrestrial biosphere on the trend throughout the first decade of the current century, which means it was a net radiocarbon source to the atmosphere rather than a net sink, thus partially offsetting some of the post-bomb decline in atmosphere ∆14C rather than being a contributing cause of it. Stratospheric input of mostly natural radiocarbon also had a positive effect on the post-bomb trend.
These published studies clearly demonstrate why its incorrect to infer the e-time of 14CO2 and 12CO2 from the post-bomb decline of ∆14C. It’s because the decline was caused by several things, only one of which was net uptake of some of the bomb radiocarbon from the atmosphere. In fact, 14C loss from the atmosphere was not even the largest cause of its decline. The major cause instead was global emissions of 14C-free CO2 from fossil fuel burning and cement production. Your Figure 18 shows the declining D14C and increasing CO2 over the same period of time, but your interpretation of the decline indicates that you don’t see any connection between those two things.
(16) So, I hope you will now accept and acknowledge that your interpretation of the D14C data in your paper is wrong and that the inferences you draw about the decline in D14C as a measure of the e-time of 12C and 14C are incorrect. This means the calculations you derive from your model and the interpretations from those calculations are wrong.
You say: “The physics model for a constant e-time (8) fits the D14C data from 1970 to 2014 with a constant e-time of 16.5 years and a balance level of zero [4]. The physics model for a constant e-time (8) fits the 14C ratio from 1970 to 1995 with e-time of 10.0 years and balance level of 203. The 14CO2 e-time of 10 years is an upper limit for the 12CO2 e-time because the 14CO2 isotope is heavier and slower [30].”
I interpret this to mean that you fit your model to the D14C and modified D14C ratio data by adjusting the e-time to obtain the best fits to the data, and that neither of the two e-times and balance levels were calculated from the model using data independent of that used to parameterize your model. Is that correct? Your wording is ambiguous.
(17) You state: “The curve fit to the 14C ratio that finds the e-time is ten years is valid even though the curve fit is good to only 1995 By 1995, the 14C ratio is close to its balance level of 203, so the 14C ratio no longer follows its e-time curve.”
I interpret this to mean you fit your model to only the pre-1995 data. You fail to say anything about why your model diverges from the modified ratio data after 1995. And you fail to say why your modified ratio levels off after 1995 and then starts increasing? Your model doesn’t even predict a balance level followed by an increase in the ratio. So, what is the basis for claiming the curve fit to the 14C ratio is valid?
(18) That you can fit a model to a portion of a time series of data by adjusting some free parameters until it fits the data doesn’t make the model valid in the sense of demonstrating its ability to replicate data independent of that used to parameterize the model. So, how is that validation of your model? Also, you don’t specify what parameters were used to fit your model to the data or what 12C and 14C data were used to drive the model.
(19) Further, what does your modified 14C ratio actually mean, and for what purpose did you modify the D14C numbers other than allowing you to plot it on the same scale as the D14C data? You say its 14C data “as a 14C ratio”. But the D14C data are ratios. So, what you call modified 14C ratios are nothing more than modified D14C values. You don’t say what your 14C ratio mean that is different from D14C. Your modified ratios don’t account or correct for the cumulative increase in 12C before or after 1970 because that would require adding the cumulative human emissions of CO2 to the atmosphere before and after 1970 and then adjusting the D14C data based on those cumulative emissions. It’s impossible to understand from the text your reason for calculating the modified D14C numbers. The lack of explanation makes it seem nothing more than a pointless exercise without any scientific reason or purpose.
(20) Also, why is your calculated e-time for the 14C ratio less than the e-time for D14 when the slope of the ratio curve is less than that for the D14C curve, based on what is shown in Figure 18. The e-time for your modified ratio has to be longer than for D14C.
(21) You state: “The 14CO2 e-time of 10 years is an upper limit for the 12CO2 e-time because the 14CO2 isotope is heavier and slower [30].”
This statement is completely false. First, the 10-year e-time comes from the fit of your model to a portion of the decline in your modified D14C data. But, as explained above, the decline in your modified D14C values is not a measure of the e-time of 12C. Moreover, the D14C data are already corrected for the isotope effect, so the difference in e-times between the D14C fit and the modified D14C fit is not due an isotope effect.
(22) You state your carbon cycle has 6 different e-times and when a level is far from its balance level its own e-time dominates its return to its balance level and therefore is measurable. This is gibberish. First, when you fit your model to the D14C data, it had only one e-time even though CO2 is not in balance, i.e., steady state. As such, why only one e-time rather than 6 different e-times. The text about your multiple e-times makes no sense. It’s nothing but hand waving, without any explanation.
(23) You state that the return of D14C to its original balance level of zero even as 12C has increased, means the dominant carbon flow into the atmosphere has its D14C equal to zero, which indicates the ocean is the source of the CO2 increase after 1750. But this is inconsistent with your claim that the decline in D14C is a measure of the e-time of 14C. You are inferring from the former statement that the cause of the post-bomb decline of D14C was from 14C-free CO2 emissions from the ocean, whereas your latter statement is based on the assumption that the D14C decline was caused entirely by net uptake of 14C from the atmosphere. But both things can’t be true. This contradiction affirms that your model is nothing but a statistical fit to the D14C data, rather than a mechanistic model of the individual fluxes of 14C and 12C. If it was, then it would have to include the flux of 14C-free emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production.
(24) In Section 4.1, you state that Figures 9 and 11 show total new human carbon added to the carbon cycle is well below measured atmospheric carbon before 1950, proving that nature has played a major part in the increase of atmospheric CO2 after 1750. In previous posts, I have pointed out why the human emissions data prior to 1950 in your figure are wrong. You have failed to correct that. The human carbon emissions data in both Figure 9 and 11 are inconsistent with published estimates of carbon emissions from land-use change. They clearly show cumulative emissions from land-use change exceeded observed carbon levels before 1950. If your model calculations tell you otherwise, then your model is inconsistent with published data.
You also state that net land use change of 1.0 PgC per year has almost no effect on atmospheric CO2, and that the flow of carbon from land to atmosphere adds no new carbon to the carbon cycle and the carbon it adds to the atmosphere flows rapidly to the deep ocean. But Figures 9, 10 and 11 themselves refute those claims. A 1.0 PgC per year emission from land use change alone results in cumulative emissions of 130 PgC for the period from 1820 to 1950. But your Figure 9 shows carbon emissions from land-use change was at or near zero until after 1900, and the “land” line in Figure 10 shows net carbon flow from land-use change from 1820 to 2020 was negative, not positive. Your paper doesn’t reconcile these discrepancies and inconsistencies.
(25) Despite your claims and the incorrect data in your figures, published data clearly shows that cumulative human emissions of CO2 exceeded observed CO2 levels since at least 1850. This is not an open question or a matter of scientific controversy. There is ample published data confirming this. Your claims about carbon emissions from land-use change are simply wrong. Despite your claim, there is no credible evidence in Section 4.1 of your paper that proves nature has played a major part in the CO2 increase after 1750.
(26) Your statements in Section 5.3 about the papers by Gruber et al, Munshi, and Ballentyne et al are wrong and misleading.
First, contrary to your claim, Gruber et al. (2019) didn’t claim proving that human carbon caused the increase in ocean carbon, and they didn’t use any IPCC assumption to analyze their data. You are both misstating the what they did, the question they addressed, and ignoring the context about what was known then and now about the ocean and terrestrial biosphere as net global sinks of atmospheric CO2.
The context of Gruber et al’s 2019 paper is that the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 from 1994 to 2007 was less than the sum of human emissions over the period. That’s a fact, not an assumption. And it’s a reasonable deduction, based on that fact, that nature was a net global sink of atmospheric CO2, not a source. So, Gruber et al. addressed the question of how much of the human carbon emitted over the period is accounted for by the estimated increase in ocean carbon globally. They simply compared the mass of the CO2 emitted by humans over the period to the estimated increase in the mass of CO2 in the ocean globally over the same period. They accounted for a possible natural source of the increase in ocean CO2. Table 2 of their paper includes the loss of natural CO2 by the ocean. So, they account for the net of both loss of natural carbon from the ocean and its uptake of natural and human carbon. It shows net ocean CO2 uptake globally exceeds the loss of natural CO2, which means the oceans were a net global sink of atmospheric CO2, not a net source over the period. That same table also shows the estimated net terrestrial carbon balance was negative, which means terrestrial systems over the period were also a net global sink of atmospheric CO2, not a source. So, the Gruber et al. paper shows that both the ocean and terrestrial biosphere are net global sinks of atmospheric CO2, not sources. This obviously contradicts the conclusion of your paper. If you any objective reason or reasons why the evidence is their paper doesn’t support their conclusions, you should explain why it doesn’t, instead of simply dismissing it on a baseless claim.
With regard to the Munshi paper, you state that arguments that natural CO2 emissions change enough to cover the human signal but always average to net zero, are circular because they follow IPCC’s assumption. But that is both wrong and misleading. First, Munshi analyzed only the correlation between annual CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning and annual changes in atmospheric CO2. His analysis is based on the false premise that if the long-term increase in atmospheric CO2 is caused by anthropogenic emissions, there must be a positive correlation between annual human emissions and annual changes in CO2 to prove causation. But he failed to recognize that annual change in CO2 is the difference between annual emissions and annual sinks, both of which vary from year to year. As a result, variation in both annual emissions and annual sinks combined cover the interannual signal in human emissions, such that the correlation between the two things is relatively weak.
Because Munshi detrended the time series of cumulative human CO2 emissions vs. CO2 growth, his analysis eliminated the cumulative effect of human emissions on atmospheric CO2 growth. Thus, his results are not evidence of a lack of a causal relationship between cumulative anthropogenic CO2 emissions and the long-term global rise in atmospheric CO2. The fact is that cumulative anthropogenic CO2 emissions are almost perfectly correlated with observed CO2 levels. That correlation is but one of many pieces of evidence that the primary cause of increasing CO2 is anthropogenic.
Your statement about the meaning of the Ballentyne et al paper is both odd, to say the least, and internally inconsistent with your conclusion about nature being a net global source of atmospheric CO2. You correctly state their finding of no empirical evidence of a diminishment in the ability of land and ocean to absorb atmospheric CO2. But you say its expected because humans have added only 0.88% to the carbon cycle and that’s not enough to change the ability of the land and oceans to absorb atmospheric CO2. You seem to forget that you claim the cause of the increase in CO2 is mostly natural, and that the issue addressed by Ballentyne et al was whether the capacity of the ocean to absorb excess atmospheric CO2 has diminished globally. So, your point about human emissions being too small alone to change the ability of nature to absorb CO2 is misplaced. The issue is whether the ability is being affected by the increase in excess CO2 in the atmosphere, regardless of the source. So, the point you are making in this context is obtuse.
Secondly, you don’t seem aware of, or conveniently ignore, the fact that Ballentyne et al’s results are based on the global mass balance of CO2, which includes annual changes in atmospheric CO2, annual CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion, cement production, and land-use change, and the net exchange of CO2 between the earth’s surface reservoirs of carbon and the atmosphere. Because you implicitly accept their evidence that the global rate of CO2 uptake hasn’t declined over the 1960-2010 period, then you are also implicitly accepting their global mass balance of CO2 as being correct. As such, then your conclusion that the oceans are a net global source of atmospheric CO2, rather than a sink, can’t be correct because Ballentyne et al’s global mass balance clearly shows the ocean and land collectively are a net global sink of atmospheric CO2, rather than a net source. You can’t have it both ways. I hope you understand this fundamental contradiction in your argument. It’s another example in your paper of the lack of consilience between the evidence and claims you offer to support your claims.
(27) That the many errors and inconsistencies detailed above were not identified in any peer reviews of your papers by the journal that accepted it reflects a failure in the journal’s per review process. Your claim that this version has been thoroughly peer reviewed is dubious if you mean reviewed by recognized experts on all aspects of the subject matter in your paper. I seriously doubt anyone knowledgeable about environmental radiocarbon data and its interpretation could have reviewed the latest version of your paper and recommended it for publication by the journal that accepted it. Your interpretation of the radiocarbon data is completely wrong.
You have failed to correct all the errors previously pointed out by the few individuals, including Dave Andrews and myself, who posted constructive critical comments and identified major mistakes in your paper. Even though your current version has been accepted for publication, I would advise strongly against it being published online or in print.
Given the many errors that still exist in your paper, I encourage you to retract it before it’s posted online by the journal. You can then decide both whether it’s possible to correct the errors and revise the text to eliminate the misinterpretations, false inferences, inconsistencies, misstatements, etc. and whether the paper is worthy of publication in the open scientific literature after the necessary changes are made.
I hope you find my comments informative and helpful.
Dear Jerry,
Thank you again for your detailed challenge to my preprint. I compliment you on being a good representative of the IPCC positions on climate.
Unfortunately, your arguments are strawmen that do not properly address what my paper says. Your suggestion that I should withdraw my paper from publication is not based upon valid arguments.
Here is the big picture that your argument misses.
The IPCC position is based on the assumptions that the natural level of atmospheric CO2 has remained constant since 1750 and human CO2 emissions have therefore caused all the increase in atmospheric CO2 above 280 ppm.
My paper is based on assumptions that IPCC’s natural carbon cycle is true and that this natural carbon cycle follows IPCC’s turnover time, or to be more precise, its equation (2) assumption that
Outflow = Level / Te
Where Te is the e-time which is identical to IPCC’s definition of turnover time.
My paper shows that IPCC’s assumption that human CO2 emissions caused all the CO2 increase is inconsistent with IPCC’s natural carbon cycle.
Nothing in your comment disputes this simple conclusion. Your comment only addresses some of the discussion points of my paper but not the fundamental argument of my paper.
Your comment omits discussion of the key sections of my paper:
Section 2 shows from data alone the inconsistency of the IPCC’s assumption with its own data.
Section 3 derives the Physics model and shows that the hypothesis (2) is the sole hypothesis upon which all the calculations of the physics model are based.
Section 4 shows selected calculations and conclusions of the physics model.
Section 5 discusses some consequences of my paper.
All your comments relate to Section 5 and you think incorrectly that an error in Section 5, if you could find one, would invalidate my paper. But that is impossible because Sections 2, 3, and 4 do not use any the material from Section 5. Sections 2, 3, and 4 stand alone. Since you have not even attempted to find an error in Sections 2, 3, or 4, then, by default, you agree with my Sections 2, 3, and 4.
Case closed. You agree that my paper should be published.
Let’s discuss your comment.
To make your comments easier to follow, I took the liberty to add numbers to your key paragraphs to identify your 27 comments and my replies.
Your comment (1) says you will show, “The only empirical evidence provided or cited in the paper is based on misinterpretations and false inferences. Your conclusion that the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 since the beginning of the industrial era is primarily a result of natural rather than human-caused emissions rests entirely on mistakes.”
But, as we will see, your comment finds no “misinterpretations and false inferences” in my paper.
Your comment (2) incorrectly says Section 5.2 claims adjustment time equals residence time equals turnover time. My paper says no such thing.
In fact, my paper makes no such claim and explicitly explains why these times are NOT the same.
The only place my paper mentions “adjustment time” is in section 5.2 and it mentions adjustment time to explain IPCC’s definition of adjustment time and to show that it is NOT the same as the other times.
Your comment is a strawman that you use to mock my paper and then you attack your strawman which has nothing to do with my paper.
The only physically relevant times are turnover time and e-time. Adjustment time and residence time, according to IPCC’s own definition have no exact definition. They are for discussion purposes only and they have no bearing on the physics. This quote from Section 2 explains the physics properly:
“As explained below Figure 16, this carbon cycle model has 6 different e-times. When a level is far from its balance level its own e-time dominates its return to its balance level and therefore is measurable. As e-time loses its domination when its level approaches the balance level, allowing other e-times to control its path.”
Your comment (3) says my paper gets its 12CO2 e-time from the D14C data.
Nothing could be further from the truth. My paper uses only IPCC carbon cycle data to derive the e-time of 12CO2.
The IPCC itself says the 12CO2 e-time is about 4 years. (See Section 1 Introduction). And IPCC’s natural carbon cycle data show this e-time is 3.5 years. See equation (23).
Your comment (4) says, “The only way to make your model predict that most (75%) of the CO2 increase is natural is to require a short CO2 adjustment time and net natural CO2 emissions that far exceed anthropogenic emissions. To make sure your model produces your result, you actually have to constrain it with the requirement that e-time of CO2 must be short (only 4 years) and natural CO2 must be 95 percent of atmospheric CO2. So, in effect, you are predetermining what your model predicts by these baseless and unrealistic constraints.”
Nowhere does my paper create an e-time with the goal of achieving a desired result. That is another strawman.
My model derives its CO2 e-times directly from IPCC’s data for its natural carbon cycle. Then my model simply says that IPCC’s true human carbon cycle must have the same e-times as its natural carbon cycle. Certainly, you would agree with that.
IPCC’s own data found in its Figure 6.1 show natural CO2 inflow into the atmosphere is about 20 times greater than the human inflow. But even this fact does not enter into my model’s calculation of the true human carbon cycle.
In section 3, my paper explains why the best way to calculate the true human carbon cycle is to calculate it all by itself. My carbon cycle model does this, and the result is that human CO2 emissions have added about 33 ppm to atmospheric CO2. That’s it.
That 33 ppm is a direct result of IPCC’s own data and IPCC’s own turnover time. I have done nothing special to derive this result. And this result is a direct result of properly using IPCC’s natural carbon cycle data. This is something the IPCC should have done decades ago before it got on the wrong track.
My paper makes physics simple. Your comment makes things complicated because you do not understand how to do theoretical physics. Consequently, you do not understand my paper.
It is shameful that the IPCC, with its hundreds of billions of dollars, did not derive the physics model I present in my paper. It is shameful the IPCC did not calculate its human carbon cycle using a carbon cycle model that is consistent with its own natural carbon cycle. It is shameful that there is no government agency would fund my research.
This is why my paper must be published. My paper is the only research that I am aware of that derives a valid carbon cycle model that other researchers can and should use.
Your comment (5) claims my model derives its e-time from D14C data. Nothing could be further from the truth. You simply do not understand my paper.
Your comment (6) claims, “empirical evidence clearly shows the oceans are and have been a net global sink of atmospheric CO2, not a source.”
First, that claim conflicts with the results of the physics model which is based entirely on IPCC’s natural carbon cycle data. Therefore, claim (6) conflicts with IPCC’s own data.
Second, Gruber et al. (and others) incorrectly assume human CO2 causes all the increase in atmospheric CO2 and they use this assumption in their data analysis. It is circular reasoning to claim “the oceans are and have been a net global sink” when that conclusion is a direct result of an incorrect assumption that predetermines the conclusion.
The speculation you refer to relates to the physics model calculations that show how changes in the e-times of the surface ocean and deep ocean can explain the increase of natural CO2 in the atmosphere. Section 5 shows how these calculations correspond to research by Salby, Harde, Kuo and MacRae.
Comment (6) is merely a discussion of the implications of the physics model that have nothing to do with the validity of the physics model.
Your Comment (7) claims my “implicit assumption or belief that the post-bomb decline of D14C is a measure of the e-time (and adjustment time) of 12CO2 is false.” You claim this stems from my misinterpretation of D14C.
Nowhere does my paper make such and assumption. As already explained, my paper derives its e-times directly from IPCC’s natural carbon cycle. If you read my paper correctly, you will see that I interpret D14C properly.
Nowhere does my paper say D14C is a measure of 14C.
Your Comment (8) explains how to calculate D14C. We agree on this.
Your Comment (9) says, “So, what you call D14C in your paper is the ∆14C data in those two cited papers. And neither D14C nor ∆14C are expressions of the concentration of 14C in the atmosphere.” Yes, we agree.
Your Comment (10) implies I use D14C and ∆14C differently. No, I do not. I agree that they are the same thing and not expressions of 14C concentration.
Your Comment (11) explains how to interpret D14C. We agree except your math is incorrect. D14C is a linear function of 14C and an inverse function of 12CO2. They are both to the first power.
Your Comment (12) claims, “you are implicitly (but incorrectly) assuming the decline was caused entirely by net uptake of 14C from the atmosphere and that 14C is a perfect analogue tracer of the uptake of 12CO2. So, you fit your model to the D14C data to derive an e-time of 16.5 years, and then mistakenly infer that it’s the e-time of 14C and 12C.”
My paper makes no such assumptions. You entirely misinterpret my paper and are using strawmen arguments. Yes, I fit the parameters in equation (8) to D14C data. Equation (8) is for a simple one-reservoir model with a constant e-time as described in section 3.1. This is a valid way to find the approximate e-time for any variable that is far from its balance level.
Nowhere does my paper conclude that the 16.5-year e-time for D14C is “the e-time of 14C and 12C.” Your statement is a strawman that does not represent what my paper says. Please be honest about what my paper says.
Your Comment (13) correctly says the e-time for D14C is not the e-time of either 14C or 12C.
Your Comment (14) is another strawman that incorrectly claims I contribute the decline of D14C to 14C alone.
Your comment incorrectly says, “the rate of its post-bomb decline can’t be described by a single time constant.” That is incorrect because it can be described with a single e-time, namely, 16.5 years. But you are correct that there are likely multiple causes that result in this single e-time.
Your comment discusses the flows of 14C between the reservoirs. My model treats each component, e.g., natural 12CO2, human 12CO2, 14C, and other components, independently, which is the best way to calculate and envision how each component flows through the carbon cycle. If data were available for 14C, my physics model would be able to calculate how 14C flows through the carbon cycle.
Your comment (14) does not show there is any error in my paper.
Your Comment (15) is another strawman. It says, “These published studies clearly demonstrate why its incorrect to infer the e-time of 14CO2 and 12CO2 from the post-bomb decline of ∆14C.” My paper does not make that assumption.
Your comment says, “In fact, 14C loss from the atmosphere was not even the largest cause of its decline. The major cause instead was global emissions of 14C-free CO2 from fossil fuel burning and cement production.
Your ”In fact” is not demonstrated because you (or any sources you may quote) do not have proper and valid carbon cycle models to make these calculations.
Your comment says my “Figure 18 shows the declining D14C and increasing CO2 over the same period of time, but your interpretation of the decline indicates that you don’t see any connection between those two things.”
The conclusion in Section 5.2 says, “The D14C curve is significant because its balance level remained near zero after the 14C bomb pulse of the 1960s and after the 12C increase. The D14C return to its original balance level of zero even as 12C has increased, means the dominant carbon flow into the atmosphere has its D14C equal to zero, which indicates the ocean is the source of the CO2 increase after 1750.”
My paper’s suggestion and worthy of mention in the discussion. Nothing in your comments refutes that suggestion. Neither you nor the IPCC have explained why D14C returned to its original balance level of zero. I have.
Your Comment (16) is another strawman. It repeats your previous error. Nowhere does my paper say “the decline in 14C is a measure of 12C and 14C.” Your accusation proves you have not accurately read my paper.
Your comment asks, “Is that correct? Your wording is ambiguous.”
Your quotation from Section 5.2 combines my 3 separate paragraphs into one paragraph. That makes it ambiguous. Keep them separated. E-time does not change the data. All e-times in Figure 18 are calculated using equation (8) which is not the physics carbon cycle model.
My physics model does not use any 14C data to calculate e-times. As already explained, the physics model uses the e-times found in IPCC’s Figure 6.1 for its natural carbon cycle model.
Your Comment (17) quotes from Section 5.2, ““The curve fit to the 14C ratio that finds the e-time is ten years is valid even though the curve fit is good to only 1995. By 1995, the 14C ratio is close to its balance level of 203, so the 14C ratio no longer follows its e-time curve.”
Then your comment says, “You fail to say anything about why your model diverges from the modified ratio data after 1995. And you fail to say why your modified ratio levels off after 1995 and then starts increasing?”
The answer to your comment is found in the second sentence of your quote from Section 5.2 above and in this paragraph that follows:
“By 1995, the 14C ratio is close to its balance level of 203, so the 14C ratio no longer follows its e-time curve.”
“As explained below Figure 16, this carbon cycle model has 6 different e-times. When a level is far from its balance level its own e-time dominates its return to its balance level and therefore is measurable. An e-time loses its domination when its level approaches the balance level, allowing other e-times to control its path.”
This answer requires only a simple understanding of how a multiple reservoir carbon cycle model works. If you don’t understand this explanation, then you should go through the math and physics in section 3.
I don’t need to explain why the 14C ratio “levels off after 1995 and starts increasing.” The answer should be obvious. It’s because the 12CO2 is increasing as shown by the red line in Figure 18. For a constant D14C, if 12CO2 increases then 14CO2 must increase.
In Figure 18, the D14C continues to decrease toward its balance level of zero. After about 2005, the decrease in D14C does not compensate for the increase in 12CO2, so 14C continues to rise.
One can propose several hypotheses to explain why 14C rises. You have presented your hypothesis and I have presented mine. Mine is simpler. It says,
“The D14C return to its original balance level of zero even as 12C has increased, means the dominant carbon flow into the atmosphere has its D14C equal to zero, which indicates the ocean is the source of the CO2 increase after 1750.”
Your comment (17) misses the point of my section 5.2 and has no bearing on the derivations, calculations, or conclusions of my paper.
Your Comment (18) incorrectly assumes my paper uses the 12C and 14C data to derive or validate my model. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your comment shows you still do not understand my paper.
You have missed the key point that my paper uses IPCC’s natural carbon cycle data to derive the physics carbon cycle model. If you accept IPCC’s carbon cycle data, then you must accept my carbon cycle model.
So, the discussions in Section 5 relate to consequences of the physics model and have no bearing on the validity of the model.
Your Comment (19) misses the point. I did not “modify the D14C numbers.” Rather than plot the calculated 14C data, I plotted it as a ratio in Figure 18 because this allows Figure 18 to show all the information relevant to the discussion. The 14C ratio has the same e-time as 14C data. It is simple math.
I do make it very clear that the 14C ratio that I plot is not the same as the D14C plot.
Figure 18 has nothing to do with the “cumulative increase” in 12C. You should be able to understand from the text how I plotted the values in Figure 18. It has no “modified D14C values. I describe exactly how I calculate the 14C ratio.
Your Comment (20) asks why the e-time for 14C can be less than the e-time for D14C when the slope of 14C is less than the slope of D14C. The answer is that the e-time is a function of the balance level as well as the slope. Study equation (8) to see why this is so.
Your Comment (21) says this statement is false: “The 14CO2 e-time of 10 years is an upper limit for the 12CO2 e-time because the 14CO2 isotope is heavier and slower [30].”
In fact, this statement is true. Your comment (21) is completely irrational. I correctly find the approximate e-time of the 14CO2 data without needing to fit the full curve. And I use 14C data, not D14C data to find the 14C e-time. Your comment mixes up the 14C data with the D14C data. I plotted both on curves in Figure 18 so everyone can see the difference. But you did not see it.
Your Comment (22) shows you are not qualified to comment on my paper. This is a scientific paper, and I wrote it for people who have the necessary theoretical physics to understand my paper. Perhaps you should read my book Climate Miracle that I wrote for the public.
Your Comment (23) says, “But this is inconsistent with your claim that the decline in D14C is a measure of the e-time of 14C.”
My paper never says that. This must be the tenth time you have made this error.
Your Comment (24) discusses Figures 9 to 11.
Figure 9 shows the carbon cycle calculations for new human carbon exclusive of land use change contributions.
Figure 10 shows the calculations for net land use change.
Figure 11 shows the results for both new human carbon and land human carbon. Figure 11 is simply the sum of Figures 9 and 10.
Your Comment (24) claims, “In previous posts, I have pointed out why the human emissions data prior to 1950 in your figure are wrong. You have failed to correct that.”
Your claim refers to Net Land Use Change. If you read my paper, you will see that Table 1 correctly uses IPCC’s Table 6.1 values for Net Land Use Change. These are the values I inserted in the calculations. Please check your calculations before you claim my data or calculations are wrong.
Look at Figure 10 which uses IPCC’s Table 6.1 for “Net Land Use Change”.
The carbon cycle model allows carbon that enters the atmosphere to flow out of the atmosphere according to IPCC’s natural carbon cycle data. So, it may surprise you that the carbon flow from land to atmosphere caused by land use change does not remain long in the atmosphere but quickly flows to the deep ocean.
This land use carbon ends up in the land and deep ocean. It makes no visible increase in atmospheric carbon.
This kills the idea that land use change can explain the gap shown in Figure 11 between Total Atmospheric Carbon and New Human carbon added. The reason is the gap is present is that land use carbon that enters the atmosphere moves quickly to the deep ocean.
These calculations are not about cumulative emissions. They are about how emissions flow through the carbon cycle. These calculations are consistent with all published data.
Your comment says, “But Figures 9, 10 and 11 themselves refute those claims.”
Figure 9 does not include land use carbon, intentionally. You missed that.
Figure 10 shows land carbon decreased from 1820 to 2020. You can read the values in Table 3. The reason the land carbon does not decrease according to Table 1 Net Land Use Change is that some carbon that flows from the land to the atmosphere flows back to the land. This is according to IPCC’s natural carbon cycle data.
There are no “discrepancies and inconsistencies” in these calculations. The fact that they surprise you is the reason my paper must be published.
Heretofore, scientists like you have had to estimate the effects of the carbon cycle by gut feeling. You did not have a carbon cycle model that represents IPCC’s own data.
Now, you are seeing the effect of the true carbon cycle for the first time. It is natural to be surprised but it is unscientific to claim my paper is wrong because its calculations do not reproduce the numbers that you want to see.
Your Comment (25) incorrectly claims “… published data clearly shows…” It does not. My paper uses IPCC-approved data and these data show your claim is wrong. To make your point, you must show the data. Such data would have to conflict with IPCC’s data to make your point.
Your comment (26) discusses the papers by Gruber et al., Munshi, and Ballentyne.
These are discussions have no bearing on the derivations, calculations, or conclusions of my paper.
Read the Gruber paper carefully. They should have listed their assumptions, but they did not. You must follow their data analysis to discover that they assumed human carbon caused all the increase in atmospheric CO2. They should redo their analysis using my carbon cycle model. If they do that, they will get a different result from their data.
Their paper does not contradict the conclusions of my paper because the foundation of my paper rests on IPCC’s carbon cycle data and theoretical physics. But my paper contradicts their paper just like it contradicts IPCC’s human carbon cycle.
This is an example of why my paper must be published. There are multitudes of data analyses ongoing that should be using my carbon cycle model.
There is not room in my paper to explain in detail where Gruber or hundreds of other IPCC papers have made this error. The most I can do, without government funding, is to show the scientific community how to make valid carbon cycle calculations. Other people can do the job you recommend.
Regarding Munshi’s papers, it is a statistical requirement to detrend time-series data before doing a correlation analysis. Your comment says otherwise and is wrong. The hypothesis that human emissions cause all the CO2 increase requires a correlation between annual human emissions and annual CO2 increase. Munshi not only tested annual correlations but, in other papers, tested periods up to 5 years. All correlations are zero. Normal science would conclude that there is no measurable cause and effect. There is no room for handwaving arguments in science.
Your argument that Munshi should have considered sinks as well is invalid. If human emissions cause all the increase, then there would be a statistical signal to support that effect.
Your comment that “cumulative anthropogenic CO2 emissions are almost perfectly correlated with observed CO2 levels” is one of the classic examples of how to be fooled by statistics.
Regarding Ballentyne, there is no inconsistency in my use of his finding that there is no measurable change in the ability of the oceans to absorb CO2 which contradicts the claim that the Revelle effect caused such a change.
Your comment claims, “So, your point about human emissions being too small alone to change the ability of nature to absorb CO2 is misplaced. The issue is whether the ability is being affected by the increase in excess CO2 in the atmosphere, regardless of the source. So, the point you are making in this context is obtuse.”
One key to the argument that human carbon emissions are dangerous is that human emissions add carbon to the fast carbon cycle by moving carbon from the slow carbon. By contrast, natural emissions use carbon in the fast carbon cycle. The fact that the added human percent is small is relevant to my argument that human emissions have not changed the e-times in the natural carbon cycle.
My use of Ballentyne’s conclusion does not mean I must accept all the other parts of his paper. I can choose this particular conclusion because it supports my hypothesis. Ballentyne, like Gruber, assumed in his data analysis that human carbon has caused all the increase in atmospheric CO2.
Your Comment (26) has no bearing on the validity of my paper.
Your Comment (27) incorrectly assumes your claims and strawmen are valid.
I have shown that none of your claims are valid.
Obviously, I do not know the peer reviewers of my paper. One reviewer was very knowledgeable in the subject matter of my paper and was very encouraging that it be published. This reviewer encouraged me to add additional discussions, which I did.
If there were any errors in my paper, this reviewer would have found them. So, contrary to your claims, the journal’s peer review process and peer reviewers were excellent. You, on the other hand are not qualified to review my paper.
You miss the overall logic in my paper. You do not understand the scientific basis of my paper. You do not understand how my paper is based solely on IPCC data and theoretical physics.
You misunderstand how I use the 14C data. You make strawman arguments. Your objections to my use of D14C and 14C data show you do not follow the logic of a physicist.
I don’t play ecologist. You should not play theoretical physicist.
While I thank you for your effort and challenges, your conclusions and recommendations are not based on a valid review of my paper.
In fact, your misunderstanding of my paper shows how important my paper is to climate science. There are too many errors being made in climate research and my paper will help other scientists to correct these errors.
My paper brings two very significant benefits to climate science.
First, it cleanly shows that the assumption that human emissions cause all the CO2 increase is wrong, and that nature plays the dominant part in the CO2 increase.
Second, it gives the world a true carbon cycle model – thoroughly checked by Will Happer – that other scientists can use and expand upon.
Overall, my paper fills a giant gap in climate science. There is an absence of research in these parts of climate science and my paper helps fill this absence.
Thank you again for your help and effort.
Dr. Ed–I am copying a comment from another blog(hope there is no legal problem with doing that) to make sure you know about this IPCC protocol for addressing errors in their reports. This was at Not A Lot of People Know That
David Coe permalink
August 31, 2021 1:57 pm
I too fear that we will be ignored, but will go down fighting. I have recently been informed that there is the following IPCC protocol.
IPCC Protocol for Addressing Possible Errors in IPCC Assessment Reports, Synthesis Reports, Special Reports and Methodology Reports (“the Protocol”), as adopted by the Panel at the 33rd Session in Abu Dhabi (10-13 May 2011) and as amended at the 37th Session in Batumi (14-18 October 2013), of a significant error underlying all IPCC reports.
Dr Patrick Frank and Christopher Monkton have both filed notices of errors in the past couple of months. I have been advised to do the same, which of course I will do. I doubt that Dr Frank and Viscount Monckton will take no for an answer. Neither will I!
As a chemist I am annoyed by CO2. It should be CO₂. I use text substitution to do this and other substitutions . Very useful in science and technical stuff.
HI Talis,
In my paper, which was formatted in Word, I think I have all the 2’s as subscripts.
In WordPress, it is another matter. Not all WordPress blocks allow subscripts.
Thanks for all the work you have done on climate.
As a British farmer, who was being told in the 1970’s that the next Ice Age was about to happen, since winters were 10 days longer, glaciers were growing 100 ft per year, your paper has been refreshing. From 1940-1980 temperatures were falling while CO2 was rising. I regret it was Margaret Thatcher who set up the Hadley Centre in c 1984, after a brief rise in global temperatures to try to reduce power from British coal miners. As she was the only European PM with a science degree, she was believed in saying CO2 was responsible. She later admitted (her autobiography) the science was complicated and economic problems from it could be severe.
Well, nothing has changed… The world is still cooling down, as it has been for the last 8k to 6k years. The climate shall never again be as hot as it was 6,000 years ago, as we are well past the hottest part of this current inter-glacial period.
Just look at the temperature graphs for the last 4 Ice Ages… It looks like a heart-beat monitor in a hospital room… It is just going to get colder…not hotter. The raise in mean temps in modern times started in 1750..or so..when the LIA ended. This increase ended in the 1940s, then started to cool down until the 1980s, when things began to heat up again. But, now…the mean temperatures are no longer climbing…and haven’t been for the past several years.
How could this be? Did the CO2 in the atmosphere suddenly reduce itself? No? You mean the atmospheric CO2 is still increasing? Well, why the stall in mean temperature increasing? Doesn’t the Earth’s Mean Temperature depend on atmospheric CO2? It doesn’t?
Well, what could possibly explain the rise and fall of Earth’s Mean Temperatures…if not CO2?
Why are you pointing at the Sun?
Cant say I understand the complexities of your paper but does it matter if CO2 can`t be the cause of warming the earth?
It only matters to the people trying to gain control over the means of production, while looting your wallet, and telling you want to do…and how to live.
It really only matters to the Socialists and the Collectivists… Oh, and the people they have already brainwashed, who are so pathetically emotionally disturbed.
Dr. Berry,
Your final revision of Preprint #3 is outstanding. While I know many of Jerry Elwood’s comments were based upon IPCC talking points; he is definitely a sharp man, only wrong. Your “back and forth” with him was very educational and helped sharpen some of your arguments, and added clarity to your paper. It could and should be published in Nature. It probably will be one day, but you probably won’t be around.
Here is a peer reviewed paper that corroborates what I have been asserting for years: That water vapor controls the climate and CO2 has no significant influence. The sun matters because it provides the energy to drive the water vapor into the atmosphere http://thelightfootinstitute.ca/imglib/Earth_temp_paper.pdf
Statements therein include:
“In other words, the non-condensing GHGs are passive and do not affect Earth’s temperature because they are always rendered ineffective by the much larger warming by water vapor.”
“The increase in temperature over the decades mid-1970s to 2011 was caused by an increase in water vapor and not by an increase in CO2.”
“Carbon dioxide and the other non-condensing greenhouse gases (GHGs) as in Figure 3 are small, passive, and have no effect on the Earth’s temperature.”
A recent update of my work which focuses on the observation that WV controls climate because it has been increasing faster than possible from just planet warming is at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338805648_Water_vapor_vs_CO2_for_planet_warming_14
Have you seen Dr Peter Wards site …. https://whyclimatechanges.com/ In which he proposes that the rise in temperatures are because of O2 depletion ??
Dear Ed
R. Cultz published my charts on his website a number of times on the basics of CO2.
I’m interested in adding your chart (CO2 above 280 ppm) to the list.
I’m no scientist, but have always been interested in the sciences. I did one year of environmental studies many years back and have been following the growing ECO hype ever since. What always strikes me the most is how little people know about the basics. That’s why I created these Charts.
https://www.ric-communications.ch/projekte/simple-science-1
The world of CO2
Infographics can be helpful, in making things simple to understand. CO2 is a complex topic with a lot of information and statistics. These simple step by step charts should help to give you an idea of CO2’s importance. Without CO2, plants wouldn’t be able to live on this planet. Just remember, that if CO2 falls below 150 ppm, all plant life would cease to exist.
– N° 1 Earth’s atmospheric composition
– N° 2 Natural sources of CO2 emissions
– N° 3 Global anthropogenic CO2 emissions
– N° 4 CO2 – Carbon dioxide molecule
– N° 5 The global carbon cycle
– N° 6 Carbon and plant respiration
– N° 7 Plant categories and abundance (C3, C4 & CAM Plants)
– N° 8 Photosynthesis, the C3 vs C4 gap
– N° 9 Plant respiration and CO2
– N° 10 The logarithmic temperature rise of higher CO2 levels.
– N° 11 Earth’s atmospheric composition in relationship to CO2
– N° 12 Human respiration and CO2 concentrations.
– N° 13 600 million years of temperature change and atmospheric CO2
– N° 14 The composition of the human body
Thanks for your feedback!