Seven Proofs: Why Human CO2 does not control the CO2 level or the climate
Ed Berry, PhD, Theoretical Physics, CCM
Here are seven proofs that human CO2 does not control the CO2 level. My published papers describe these proofs, but this summary may help people understand these proofs.
Tell me what you think of these seven proofs in your comments. You may download a PDF of this post here.
Fundamentals:
- CO2 flows through the atmosphere as water flows through your bathtub.
- Half-life is how long it takes for the level to decrease by half with no inflow.
IPCC’s core theory:
- (a) Natural CO2 stayed constant at 280 ppm after 1750.
- (b) Human CO2 caused all the CO2 increase above 280 ppm, or 140 ppm today.
- (c) This theory makes human CO2 33% of today’s CO2 level of 420 ppm.
- (d) Human CO2 half-life is 1000 years.
Here are seven proofs (not opinions) that show IPCC’s core theory is false.
- IPCC argues, “Nature absorbs human CO2. So, nature cannot also emit CO2. So, human CO2 increased CO2.” This circular argument assumes (a) is true to prove (a) is true.
- Natural CO2 and human CO2 flow independently through the atmosphere. When at equilibrium, the percent of human CO2 in the atmosphere equals the percent of human CO2 in the CO2 inflow, which IPCC says is about 5%. So, human CO2 is about 5% (or 20 ppm), not 33% (or 140 ppm) as IPCC’s core theory claims.
- IPCC data show the natural CO2 half-life is 2.4 years. Human CO2 half-life cannot be 1000 years because human and natural CO2 molecules are identical, so their half-lives are identical, or 2.4 years. To get 1000 years, IPCC needs a fictitious magic demon to trap human CO2 and let natural CO2 go free.
- Human CO2 has added only 1% to the total carbon in the carbon cycle, which adds only 4 ppm to the CO2 level. So, there is no climate emergency.
- (D14C + 1000) measures the carbon-14 in a sample of carbon-12. The natural level of (D14C + 1000) is 1000. Human CO2 has no carbon-14, so it lowers D14C. If human CO2 were 33% of CO2, it would lower (D14C + 1000) from 1000 to 666. But (D14C + 1000) is still 1000. This proves human CO2 is insignificant to the CO2 increase.
- Human CO2 cannot have caused the CO2 increase before 1955 because the sum of all human CO2 emissions before 1955 is less than the CO2 increase above 280 ppm.
- The COVID-caused 20% decrease in human CO2 emissions did not slow the steady increase in atmospheric CO2 because natural CO2 causes the CO2 increase.
Conclusions
We used the scientific method to prove IPCC’s core theory of human CO2 is false. These proofs supersede all opinions, claims, and votes that this IPCC theory is true.
Natural CO2, not human CO2, causes the CO2 increase. Decreasing human CO2 emissions will not lower the CO2 level. Carbon capture is a waste of engineering talent and money.
Most humans follow groupthink rather than truth. So, the belief that human CO2 drives the CO2 increase may be the biggest public delusion and most costly fraud in history.
Your conclusion that human CO2 is 5% may not be correct. This assumes that all CO2 from vegetation decay is natural CO2. In reality, vegetation is produced by photosynthesis of atmospheric CO2. Atmospheric CO2 contains human CO2. Therefore vegetation contains human CO2. Thus, decaying vegetation contains human CO2 which adds to the human CO2 in the atmosphere. I made this same error when I was solving this same problem using process engineering logic. I now calculate humans are contributing 50ppm to the atmosphere after I corrected my solution for the above flaw.
Ed Sebesta esebesta@comcast.net
Dear Ed,
I use the data for annual human CO2 emissions since 1750. I assume you use the same data.
If so, then we are talking about natural CO2 emissions. IPCC shows its data for the natural carbon cycle as of 1750 at equilibrium.
These two pieces of data show human CO2 emissions after 2000 are about 5% of the total CO2 emissions.
So, where do you get your data, or what argument do you make?
Thanks,
Ed
If you account for the fact that both human emitted and natural carbon undergo bombardment from cosmic rays in the stratosphere, producing carbon 14 there must be some correction to the reasoning on carbon14 delta? It may not be large. If it’s not measured to be large then that supports your argument I think
William
I will email you a copy of how I used IPCC data, process engineering calculations and calculation results.
Ed Sebesta
You can measure man made CO2 because it is not radioactive. Atmospheric CO2 is radioactive.
It’s currently about half that, 3.0% and give the exponential increase in emissions since 1958, it is likely to be the limit of fossil fuel CO2 in the air.
In 1958 fossil fuel was measured at 2.03%+/-0.15% by New Zealander G.J. Fergusson.
Then amount of radioactive CO2 doubled in 1965 and gave a perfect e-kt fit with half life 6.5 years and destroying the Bern concept of multiple sinks. Besides, it’s all gone in just 57 years and there is only once place you can hide radioactive CO2.
The horizontal asymptote on the graph of radioactive CO2 after 1965 is now clear at just under 3.0% of fossil fuel CO2 or 12ppm of 421ppm.
You do not need a paper. It’s a direct measurement. There is no debate.
Allow me to add proof #8:
88% of mankind lives in the Northern Hemisphere. Every winter in the North when people heat their homes and use more electricity to bring light in darkness the CO2-level of the air on this planet goes down. How can that be with influence of mankind? NOT!
Can this content be shared on facebook? I think more people need to read it.
Dear Connie,
Yes, you may share content on my website on social media.
Ed
Did the Tonga, volcano eruption affect the figures since it’s occurrence?
As a corollary, NASA and a half dozen other countries including Australia have been analysing satellite data since 1988 for the greening of the planet. And in 2016 announced the planet green cover had increased 14%, mainly in semi arid desert areas. This is an additional green/tree population equal to the Brazilian rainforest. This has been played down in the press.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth/
And CO2 in the same period also went up 14%.
This busts NETT ZERO as CO2 goes up and trees go up at the same time by the same amount. It is certain that the trees sequester CO2. What is now also certain is that it is precisely replaced by the vast 98% of CO2 in the oceans as dictated by Henry’s Law of dissolved gases.
It is also notable that NASA promoters say this is due to ‘fertilization’ which is biological rubbish. Trees are made from CO2 and H2O and nothing much else. More CO2 means more trees, more crops, more food.
The greening is the size of Germany and France combined
CO2 is rapidly absorbed in the oceans when released at low altitude. While the half life of CO2 in the atmosphere is measured from the decay of radioactive CO2 after 1965 H bomb blasts, it appears to be absorbed much faster at low altitude.
Australia had massive bushfires in 2019 and great clouds of smoke and CO2 went West. There was a massive algal bloom as an obvious result. However this was credited to the very small amounts of Fe/Iron in the smoke
but you cannot make phytoplankton/phyto bacteria from iron. It was clearly a direct result of the billions of tons of CO2.
https://climate.esa.int/en/news-events/australian-bushfires-triggered-algal-blooms/#:~:text=A%20new%20study%20in%20Nature,in%20the%20Pacific%20Southern%20Ocean.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03805-8
Every time we see obvious evidence of the rapid absorption of CO2, we get pseudo science excuses.
You get the same made up science to explain the variations in CO2 with seasons.
CO2 is clearly seasonal
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/
Because CO2 obeys Henry’s law. Increased ocean temperature means increased CO2. Global Warming causes CO2 because 98% of all gaseous CO2 is dissolved in the ocean. Increase the temperature and more CO2 escapes.
What is laughable is the graph of CO2 highest in the spring and lowest in autumn. Really. Shouldn’t it be the reverse if vegetation is responsible for the obvious annual cycling. CO2 goes down in spring and rises in Autumn as leaves fall. Also leaves are only 5% of the tree, an evolutionary development to minimize the annual loss.
What really happens is that CO2 goes up with the spring because the surface is hotter. Then the phytoplankton and phyto bacteria bloom. They can double and in days, not months. This is exponential repid growth. And like all ecological systems grow past the sustainable point and when CO2 starts to go down, they over consume and CO2 plummets. This fully explains the cycling of CO2, and the NASA explanation is the exact reverse of reality.
So the evidence is all around. CO2 comes out in spring and summer and goes in the water in autumn and winter.
If the oceans are in fact releasing net CO2, how are they becoming more acidic? Shouldn’t the opposite happen?
Another NASA comment on the fact that the Southern Hemisphere oscillation in CO2 is much lower is that the land mass is lower so the vegetation is lower, ignoring the tropical evergreen areas. It is also out of phase so againa a summer/winter phenomenon. However it is also noticeable that the amplitude of temperature variation is in direct proportion, which supports the idea that Henry’s Law works on CO2.
I would also add for those people who think some CO2 is locked in the air forever, thousands of years that they are breathing. And what does breathing do? Exchanges CO2 and O2 rapidly. CO2 goes in at 0.042% and comes out between 4% and 14% with every breath. 400m2 (4000sqft) of wet surface, sea water on one side (saline) and look at how fast CO2 comes out of the water. And O2 goes in.
Of course we know that. Fish breathe and output CO2 and fart methane, like all living things. If O2 and CO2 did not exchange quickly, all the fish would drown!
I might point out too the role of air velocity. Not an expert on this but the rate of transfer of gas can be as high as the fourth power of wind speed. Which is why still ponds become stagnant and the fish and plants die. But the ocean is always breathing. You can see the oxygen and CO2 behind churned in every wave, especially if you are on a boat.
In the human body, when you need to get oxygen in faster and CO2 out faster, you breathe faster. And the use of tiny tubes in the lungs means not only that you get massive surface area, but you get very high speeds.
So every living thing breathes in O2 and outputs CO2. We are all ICEs. Internal Combustion Engines running on old solar energy captured in hydrated CO2 from photosynthesis, known also as carbohydrates. While there are some anaerobic bacteria, most bacteria and even fungi breathe. All life is powered by solar.
And coal is free. And non polluting, just CO2 and H2O. And H2O kills vastly more people than CO2. It should be banned.
All upgoing thermal radiation from Earth occurs in the infra-red (IR) spectrum.
. Water vapor is active as a greenhouse gas in over 80% of that spectrum, making it overwhelmingly the most important greenhouse gas.
. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a very minor greenhouse gas, active as such at only two IR frequencies, 2.4 and 14.99 microns.
. Very little radiation occurs at 4.3 microns and carbon dioxide has completely saturated that spectrum.
. The 14.99 emission activity spike of carbon dioxide is the only one of significance, and this is already partially covered by water vapor, limiting any further warming effect.
. This generally means that in the tropics and under other high humidity conditions, at the 14.99 micron spectrum water vapor plus existing levels of carbon dioxide will together also saturate this spectrum, because the activity of each GHG is cumulative.
. As atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide increase, their activity effect declines exponentially.
. Methane, Nitrous oxide and Water vapour are all active at ~8 microns, which together also saturates this area.
. When saturation of a spectrum occurs, adding any further greenhouse gas of any description will have no effect.
. The major area where upgoing thermal radiation from Earth occurs, is at a wide band centered around ~ 10 microns, at the peak of the radiation curve, where the main greenhouse gasses are not active.
Together these verified facts mean that increases in greenhouse gasses from any source, are so vanishingly small that any effect on global climate is insignificant.
Thank you Dr. Berry for resorting to science to address this issue. It’s a breath of fresh air to hear someone use facts, data, analysis, and discussion.
As we know, IPCC models have given incorrect predictions. Between 1977 and 2020 average global temperature rose by 0.3 degree C – compared with an average 0.9 degree C prediction by IPCC models. Here are the three stages of group think.
1. ILLUSION
A group with common interests shares a belief, based on an un-validated or incomplete model. The model makes worst case assumptions – using the “precautionary principle” – to scare the pants off you.
That then becomes “the science” which must be followed and can’t’ be questioned. Illusion becomes delusion.
2. CONSENSUS
When that “science” fails to stand up to questioning, group thinkers hang onto their consensus for comfort. Apart from funding from backers – their consensus is all that binds them together. In their minds the illusion is now reality and it must be defended.
3. INTOLERANCE
Those who questions their position must be silenced as the “consensus” becomes the only viable defence against searching questions.
The group-thinkers then resort to nudging, censorship, insults and intimidation, “cancelling” critical thinkers. Investigative journalism is amongst many casualties.
They continue on their Kamikaze trajectory, like Lemmings heading for the edge of a cliff, even attempting to deny the laws of physics, with impossible demands.
As we know, the CO2 GHG impact is effective only over a narrow part of the spectrum – and it is only a trace gas – increases above 300ppm are insignificant, as demonstrated by Professor Happer, of Princeton University.
According to the EIA only 3% of the annual emissions of CO2 are from human sources:
http://www.galileomovement.com.au/docs/jr/AtmosphericCO2LevelsFromThe1990s.pdf
The IPCC agrees:
https://archive.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-7-3.html
The EIA and IPCC are not very reliable sources of anything. Pull the next finger.
Over 50 years ago my then freshman teacher claimed we were all going to freeze to death due to global cooling by the end of the 80’s, his said CO2 had a “significant role” but I cannot remember what it was, then I read this:-
https://skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm
Surely, if this is true then NASA, the UN, and the climate cult are just as bonkers my flare-wearing teacher back in the 70’s? He may have been a believer in correlation as the most likely factor in causation, so was he seeing the lag of CO2 increase behind cooling as a reaction to cooling temperatures in the same way people claim it’s role in global warming today? Is there any praxis for CO2 in climate science?
I appreciate Dr. Berry’s desire to educate people about CO2 emissions and their effect on the atmosphere and climate. I would like to believe Dr. Berry’s conclusions. However, this email is not very persuasive. The primary reason is that Dr. Berry makes numerous allegations about IPCC theory and cites other “facts” but does not document the allegations or the facts. How can we know that the allegations or facts are true? Apparently, we must take the allegations or facts on faith, or we must spend hours or days digging through IPCC documents to confirm allegations and facts that Dr. Berry has not taken the trouble to document. I wish that he would because people need to know AND BELIEVE the truth about the effects of CO2 emissions. Faith and science are incompatible, and the burden of proof is on the person who makes allegations, not the reader.
Richard
For the most part all the documentation and references you seek are in Dr. Berry’s peer reviewed papers that he references in this compilation of the points he makes in those papers.
Faith and science are incompatible, and the burden of proof is on the person who makes allegations, not the reader.
I could not agree more, and let’s not forget Ed Berry is one of many people asking the UN for that very thing, for it is the UN making these allegations without conducting a single experiment to support their claims. When they do that real science can begin.
Great site Ed. Firstly for the followers of media hype, CO2 (44) is heavier than air (29). It cannot be a major player “up there”. It sinks. It’s consumed by plants to create O2, and by bacteria. Science.
Clouds/water are more impactful in terms of weather/climate.
CO2 Climate change rubbish science
This is a simple explanation of the hoax that masquerades as climate change science. How they use science in the sentence is beyond me. It’s POLITICS.
So you think you can change the climate? Your government has been changing the weather for years…did you care then? Human impact…listen closely…you may scream and ignore this…
CO2 is 0.04% of air. (we exhale 100x this or 4%)
O2 is 20%
N2 is 78%
Rare gases are 1+%
By volume, dry air contains 78.1% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases. Air also contains a variable amount of water vapor, on average around 1% at sea level, and 0.4% over the entire atmosphere.
So human impact is arbitrarily taken as 3%
3 x 4 % = 0.0012 (0.12%)
Care to show us how this is statistically significant?
Another elephant in the room, and something I ask all alleged scientists:
Why are they GHG’s “Green-house Gases”?
Are we in an open or closed system? Entropy is the key here. Disorder from order, not the other way.
(Please don’t reply that there is stratification in upper levels)
The whole discourse is meaningless. The truth through the chemist’s eyes.
A chemist usually begins his work by writing the reaction equation and drawing his conclusions from it.
CO2 + hf ……..*CO2 …….. CO2 + hf
In the above reaction equation, it is noteworthy that the *CO2 molecules return to their original state after the transformation and are reactivated. Catalysts usually behave this way. If a photon collides with a CO2 molecule and it is excited, the excited molecule gets rid of excess energy in one second – based on the minimum energy principle. Per square meter and per second approx. 1,625×1018 photons are emitted from the earth’s surface. For its complete absorption, a minimum of the same number of ground-state CO2 molecules is required.
But the excited CO2 molecules transfer the absorbed energy to their environment in some form. If this happens in the form of an electromagnetic wave, the reaction time is approx. 1 second. However, the CO2 molecule, which returns to its original state in 1 second, is operational again and can absorb photons again.
This, in turn, means that starting from the 2nd radiation cycle, the continuously regenerating CO2 molecules in the system also enter the process – they are capable of absorption – from here on, in principle, the molecules that have played a role up to this point would be sufficient to carry out the energy transfer; numerically: 2×(1.625×1018) = 3.25×1018 would be sufficient.
Starting from zero, after the second measure flux, a constant state is established, when the same number of CO2 molecules are excited as are regenerated from the excited state. They bathe in excess.
The rest are passive surpluses, the amount of which is: 5.84×1025 – 2×(1.63×1018) = 58 399 996.75×1018.
This is expressed as a percentage:
(58 399 996.75×1018):(58 400 000×1018) = 0.9998 ≈ 99.98 %
CO2 molecules only mediate the energy transfer between the photon emitting electromagnetic waves and the molecules which are inactive against UV radiation in the gas bath.
Recognizing the role of the CO2 molecule as a catalyst is the death of the anthropogenic greenhouse effect theory! The fact that the excited CO2 molecule regenerates within a short time and becomes capable of absorption again has so far escaped the attention of climate scientists.
Csaba Huszár
Dear Csaba,
Thank you for your comment but I don’t see how it relates to this post. First, you have not related your comment to any of my seven points. Second, this post is NOT a scientific paper. It is merely a summary of the conclusions of my papers.
Perhaps you would like to redo your comment on one of these posts:
https://edberry.com/berry-vs-andrews/
https://edberry.com/greenhouse-gas-theories-and-observed-radiative-properties-of-the-earths-atmosphere/
Dear Dr.Ed,
I tried to join your thoughts below
“We used the scientific method to prove IPCC’s core theory of human CO2 is false. These proofs supersede all opinions, claims, and votes that this IPCC theory is true.
Natural CO2, not human CO2, causes the CO2 increase. Deceasing human CO2 emissions will not lower the CO2 level. Carbon capture is a waste of engineering talent and money.
Most humans follow groupthink rather than truth. So, the belief that human CO2 drives the CO2 increase may be the biggest public delusion and most costly fraud in history”.
I agree with every word of this.
I spoke in order to try to move the scientific discourse out of the circular chase that goes on endlessly between those who support the IPCC and those who oppose them.
The solution is very simple. At the beginning of the industrial revolution, there was seven orders of magnitude more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over one square meter, than the number of photons emitted per second from a square meter of the earth’s surface (5.84×1025 /m2 carbon dioxide molecules vs 1.625×1018 /m2s photons). These are physico-chemical facts, irrefutable. The excited carbon dioxide molecules return to their basic state in one second and regenerate. They are able to absorb again.
In light of this, it is irrelevant to argue about how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere and from what source.
Dear Csaba,
Now, I see where you are going.
I organize the climate debate into IPCC’s three theories, as I would use them to defeat a climate lawsuit. The IPCC claims these three theories are true:
1. Human CO2 causes all the CO2 increase.
2. The CO2 increase caused global warming.
3. The global warming causes climate change and other bad stuff to happen.
The IPCC needs all three to be true to win a lawsuit. We can defeat a climate lawsuit if we prove only one theory is false. So, why not try to prove all three are false?
My papers prove Theory (1) is false.
Miskolczi’s paper proves Theory (2) is false.
That will be true until someone shows there is a physics error in one of these papers.
First, I see your argument as saying, because we can prove Theory (2) is false, there is no need to prove Theory (1) is false. I think we should prove both theories are false.
Second, I think your argument should be considered in the context of Miskolczi’s paper that you will find in my second link above. If you put your argument in the post of his paper, I will ask Ferenc to reply. Since that is his professional opinion focus, his answer will be much better than my answer.