How much of the atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic?

The answer according to a paper just published in the American Geophysical Union journal, Geophysical Research Letters is that about half of anthropogenic CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere and about half are taken up by natural carbon sinks…

New data show that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of carbon dioxide has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of carbon dioxide having risen from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now.

This suggests that terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans have a much greater capacity to absorb CO2 than had been previously expected.

The results run contrary to a significant body of recent research which expects that the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans to absorb CO2 should start to diminish as CO2 emissions increase, letting greenhouse gas levels skyrocket. Dr Wolfgang Knorr at the University of Bristol found that in fact the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has only been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, which is essentially zero.

The strength of the new study, published online in Geophysical Research Letters, is that it rests solely on measurements and statistical data, including historical records extracted from Antarctic ice, and does not rely on computations with complex climate models.

This work is extremely important for climate change policy, because emission targets to be negotiated at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen early next month have been based on projections that have a carbon free sink of already factored in. Some researchers have cautioned against this approach, pointing at evidence that suggests the sink has already started to decrease.

[...]

Watts Up With That?

The research conducted by Dr Wolfgang Knorr of the University of Bristol shows that since 1850 approximately 54% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions are absorbed by natural carbon sinks (i.e. plants, oceans) irrespective of the total volume of emissions…

Figure 1. The annual increase in atmospheric CO2 (as determined from ice cores, thin dotted lines, and direct measurements, thin black line) has remained constantly proportional to the annual amount of CO2 released by human activities (thick black line). The proportion is about 46% (thick dotted line). (Figure source: Knorr, 2009)

The point is that no matter how much CO2 humans emit, from 8 tons to 8 gigatons, 44% of it is taken up by natural carbon sinks. Mankind accounts for about 6 gT’s of atmospheric carbon (primarily CO2) each year. The natural variability of Earth’s carbon cycle is 6 to 7 times as large as current anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

Mankind accounts for 5-6 Gt of CO2 emissions per year. Natural sources account for 190-225 Gt per year. The natural variability of 35 Gt is 6 to 7 times as large as the total anthropogenic emissions.

In other words, there is no such thing as a natural balance between carbon sources and sinks. Most geoscientists already knew that was the case, because there is no such thing as a natural balance of anything. If there was such a thing, the Earth’s atmosphere would have long ago run out of CO2; and we would be on a pathway to running out again in 25 million years…

H/T to Bill Illis for gathering these paleo-climate data into one spreadsheet.

Despite all of the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere by humans, a linear regression would predict that we are on a course to run out of CO2.

If I subtract 56% of the annual anthropogenic emissions (the airborne fraction) from the ice core/instrumental record, CO2 would still have climbed to ~350 ppmv due to the warm-up from the Little Ice Age…

Another way of approaching this is to take the CO2 concentration from 1750 (ice core data) and add the cumulative anthropogenic emissions to it. The funny thing is that up until about 1960, atmospheric CO2 levels were lower than the cumulative anthropogenic emissions and that if I subtract the cumulative emissions from the atmospheric concentrations, I get a curve that basically tracks the temperature changes…

So if mankind never discovered how to burn things, atmospheric CO2 would have risen to 330 to 350 ppmv from 277 ppmv in 1750 instead of the current 385 ppmv. Plant stomata data clearly show that natural warming and cooling episodes over the last 10,000 years have routinely caused atmospheric CO2 levels to fluctuate between 270 and 360 ppmv. Plants “breathe” CO2 through microscopic epidermal pores called stomata. The density of plant stomata varies inversely with the atmospheric partial pressure of CO2. Several recent studies of plant stomata from living, herbarium and fossil samples of plant tissue have shown that atmospheric CO2 fluctuations comparable to that seen in the industrial era have been fairly common throughout the Holocene and Recent times.

Plant stomata measurements reveal large variations in atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the last 2,000 years that are not apparent in ice core data (Kouwenberg, 2004)…

Kouwenberg (2004) Figure 5.4: Reconstruction of paleo-atmospheric CO2 levels when stomatal frequency of fossil needles is converted to CO2 mixing ratios using the relation between CO2 and TSDL as quantified in the training set. Black line represents a 3 point running average based on 3–5 needles per depth. Grey area indicates the RMSE in the calibration. White diamonds are data measured in the Taylor Dome ice core (Indermühle et al., 1999); white squares CO2 measurements from the Law Dome ice-core (Etheridge et al., 1996). Inset: Training set of TSDL response of Tsuga heterophylla needles from the Pacific Northwest region to CO2 changes over the past century (Chapter 4).

Century-scale fluctuations in atmospheric CO2 concentrations have also been demonstrated in the early Holocene (Wagner et al., 1999)…

(Wagner et al., 1999)Fig. 1. (A) Mean SI values (±1 ) for B. pendula and B. pubescens from the early Holocene part of the Borchert section (Netherlands; 52.23°N, 7.00°E) and reconstructed CO2 concentrations. The scale of the section is in centimeters. Three lithological (Lith.) units can be recognized (18): a basal gyttja (=), succeeded by Drepanocladus peat (//), which is subsequently overlain by Sphagnum peat ( ). Six conventional 14C dates (in years before the present) are available (indicated by circled numbers): 1, 10,070 ± 90; 2, 9930 ± 45; 3, 9685 ± 90; 4, 9770 ± 90; 5, 9730 ± 50; and 6, 9380 ± 80. Summary pollen diagram includes arboreal pollen (white area) with Pinus ( ) and with Betula ( ) and nonarboreal pollen with Gramineae ( ) and with Cyperaceae, upland herbs, and Ericales ( ). Regional climatic phases after (18): YD, Younger Dryas; Fr., Friesland phase; Ra., Rammelbeek phase; and LP, Late Preboreal. For analytical method, see (13). Quantification of CO2 concentrations according to the rate of historical CO2 responsiveness of European tree birches (Fig. 2). P indicates the reconstructed position of the Preboreal Oscillation.

So… If mankind had never burned any coal, oil or natural gas, atmospheric CO2 levels would only be 30 to 50 ppmv lower than the current ~385 ppmv.  And… There’s no evidence that anthropogenic CO2 emissions have caused any warming in the last decade…

The Earth has not warmed over the last 11 years.

Or in the last thousand years…

The long term temperature trend over the last 2,000 years is flat and the warm-up out of the Little Ice Age began 260 years before atmospheric CO2 levels began to rise.

Ocean Acidification… Another Nail in a Junk Science Coffin

Sponges recycle carbon to give life to coral reefs

Coral reefs support some of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, yet they thrive in a marine desert. So how do reefs sustain their thriving populations?

Marine biologist Fleur Van Duyl from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research is fascinated by the energy budgets that support coral reefs in this impoverished environment. According to van Duyl’s former student, Jasper De Goeij, Halisarca caerulea sponges grow in the deep dark cavities beneath reefs, and 90% of their diet is composed of dissolved organic carbon, which is inedible for most other reef residents. But when De Goeij measured the amount of carbon that the brightly coloured sponges consumed he found that they consume half of their own weight each day, yet they never grew. What were the sponges doing with the carbon? Were the sponges really consuming that much carbon, or was there a problem with De Goeij’s measurements? He had to find out where the carbon was going to back up his measurements and publishes his discovery that sponges have one of the fastest cell division rates ever measured, and instead of growing they discard the cells. Essentially, the sponges recycle carbon that would otherwise be lost to the reef. De Goeij publishes his discovery on November 13 2009 in The Journal of Experimental Biology at http://jeb.biologists.org.

[...]

The sponges were shedding the newly divided cells, which other reef residents could now consume. ‘Halisarca caerulea is the great recycler of energy for the reef by turning over energy that nobody else can use [dissolved organic carbon] into energy that everyone can use [discarded choanocytes],’ explains De Goeij.

EurekaAlert!

In other words… Anthropogenic CO2 emissions help feed the critters that build coral reefs.

Dissolved Inorganic Carbon (CO2, bicarbonate, etc.) are consumed by shell building organisms to build shells (bicarbonate) and photosynthesis in the photic zone (CO2). DIC constitute about 97% of the carbon in the oceans.

Dissolved Organic Carbon (non-colloidal bits of carbohydrates, proteins, etc.) are the mostly the product of photosynthesis. DOC can come from land or, marine sources. This is consumed by sponges which secrete food for reef building organisms.

Both DIC and DOC are part of the carbon cycle.

Anthropogenic carbon emissions (primarily CO2) constitute about 3% of the Earth’s carbon budget (~6 Gt/yr).

More CO2 in the atmosphere leads to something called “CO2 fertilization.” In an enriched CO2 environment, most plants end to grow more. The fatal flaw of the infamous “Hockey Stick” chart was in Mann’s misinterpretation of Bristlecone Pine tree ring chronologies as a proxy for temperature; when in fact the tree ring growth was actually indicating CO2 fertilization as in this example from Greek fir trees…

Figure 1. Annual precipitation totals, annual air temperature anomalies, atmospheric CO2 concentrations (from Mauna Loa and Antarctica’s Law Dome ice core), and the mean standardized tree-ring series of the Greek fir trees. Adapted from Koutavas (2008). LINK Koutavas Abstract

Enriched atmospheric CO2 “feeds” reefs in two ways: 1) Enhanced photosynthesis for the symbiotic algae; and 2) More DOC to feed the sponges that also feed reef builders as the result of enhanced photosynthesis of land and marine vegetation.

Coral reefs can only grow in the photic zone of the oceans because zooxanthellae algae use sunlight, CO2, calcium and/or magnesium to make limestone.

The calcification rate of Flinders Reef has increased along with atmospheric CO2 concentrations since 1700…

Flinders Reef calcification rate has increased along with atmospheric CO2 since 1700.

As the atmospheric CO2 concentration has grown since the 1700’s coral reef extension rates have also trended upwards. This is contrary to the theory that increased atmospheric CO2 should reduce the calcium carbonate saturation in the oceans, thus reducing reef calcification. It’s a similar enigma to the calcification rates of coccoliths and otoliths.

In all three cases, the theory or model says that increasing atmospheric CO2 will make the oceans less basic by increasing the concentration of H+ ions and reducing calcium carbonate saturation. This is supposed to reduce the calcification rates of carbonate shell-building organisms. When, in fact, the opposite is occurring in nature with reefs and coccoliths – Calcification rates are generally increasing. And in empirical experiments under laboratory conditions, otoliths grew (rather than shrank) when subjected to high levels of simulated atmospheric CO2.

In the cases of reefs and coccoliths, one answer is that the relatively minor increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last couple of hundred years has enhanced photosynthesis more than it has hampered marine carbonate geochemistry. However, the otoliths (fish ear bones) shouldn’t really benefit from enhanced photo-respiration. The fact that otoliths grew rather than shrank when subjected to high CO2 levels is a pretty good indication that the primary theory of ocean acidification has been tested and falsified.

In the field of geology, when we falsify a hypothesis or a theory, we trend to start looking for a new hypothesis or theory. That’s why we rely very heavily on Chamberlain’s Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses. In the junk science of ocean acidification and anthropogenic global warming, it appears that the process is to simply discard any data that deviate from the ruling theory.

Senate Democrats: No Cap and Trade Vote This Year!

NOVEMBER 11, 2009

Climate Bill Likely on the Shelf For Rest of the Year

By IAN TALLEY
WASHINGTON — Key Senate Democrats Tuesday said it is unlikely there will be any more major committee action on climate-change legislation this year, the strongest indication yet that a comprehensive bill to cut greenhouse-gas emissions won’t be voted on until at least next year.

Although the Senate Environment Committee last week approved a version of the bill, the proposal will face strong revisions from moderate Democrats, particularly from senators on the Finance and Agriculture committees.

“It’s common understanding that climate-change legislation will not be brought up on the Senate floor and pass the Senate this year,” Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus said on the sidelines of a caucus lunch.

Mr. Baucus, a Montana Democrat, said he planned to hold a number of hearings on climate legislation and eventually mark up a bill in his panel. “But I don’t know that I can get a bill put together by this year, as important as climate-change legislation is,” he said.

Mr. Baucus was the lone dissenting Democratic vote on the Environment Panel last week because he wanted weaker emission-reduction targets and stronger provisions to protect energy-intensive industries and encourage clean-coal technologies…

[...]

Wall Street Journal

Since next year is an election year, it’s a decent bet that this goes nowhere next year either. The results of next year’s congressional elections will probably forestall any climate change legislation for the foreseeable future.

The avowed goal of Al Gore and his ilk is an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050 from 1990 levels, the so-called “80 by 50″ scheme. This would require a reduction of per capita CO2 emissions to levels not seen since the 1860’s…

Red China, India and the rest of the developing world have rejected any binding targets for emission reductions, despite the fact that the fastest growth in CO2 emissions is occurring in the developing world.

So any reductions of US emissions are pointless.

Al Gore’s Crusade…

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Al Gore crusades against global warming Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, November 11, 2009 (11-10) 18:24 PST San Rafael — Al Gore and his crusade against global warming landed in the Bay Area this week with a call to arms and a message for those who still think the former vice president is tilting at windmills. The solution to climate change includes windmills, along with solar and geothermal energy, Gore told The Chronicle in an interview. He also defended himself against attacks by critics who accuse him of pushing the green agenda so that he can personally benefit from investments he has made in green technology. “I have made some investments in the last few years that are in keeping with my beliefs and values. Were I not to do so, these same people would call me a hypocrite,” Gore said. “I have delivered the same message for more than 30 years and now I’m in a position to put at least some of my money where my mouth is.” [...] “There are still 14 or 15 percent of the people who think that the moon landing was staged on a movie lot in Arizona. If the polls are to be believed, there is still a nontrivial number who believe the Earth is flat,” Gore said. “The intergovernmental panel on climate change backed up by the national academies of science in every major country in the world have said that the evidence is now unequivocal.” [...] LINK

 

“The intergovernmental panel on climate change backed up by the national academies of science in every major country in the world have said that the evidence is now unequivocal.”

–Al Gore

Yes, Mr. Gore, “the evidence is now unequivocal.”

The Earth has not warmed over the last 11 years…

Satellite temperature data show no global warming over the last 11 years.

The long term temperature trend over the last 2,000 years is flat and the warm-up out of the Little Ice Age began 260 years before atmospheric CO2 levels began to rise…

Moberg et al., 2005 Northern Hemisphere Reconstruction and UAH Lower Troposphere temperature anomalies show no secular warming trend over the last 2000 years.

Ocean Acidification: Chicken Little Strikes Again

 

Introduction 

As global warming morphs into climate change and anthropogenic CO2 emissions give way to the Sun, the stars and our oceans as the primary drivers of climate change, environmental extremists like Al Gore are raising a new CO2-driven ecological disaster scenario to hysterical levels: Ocean acidification.   Claims have been made that oceanic pH levels have declined from ~8.2 to ~8.1 since the mid-1700’s.  This pH decline (acidification) has been attributed to anthropogenic CO2 emissions – This should come as no surprise because the pH estimates are largely derived from atmospheric CO2 concentrations (Orr et al., 2005).  It has also been postulated that anthropogenic CO2 emissions will force an additional 0.7 unit decline in oceanic pH by the year 2100 (Caldeira et al., 2003).

Alarmist organizations like the National Resources Defense Council are hard at work extrapolating these oceanic pH model predictions into ecological nightmares…

Scientists predict the Arctic will become corrosive to some shelled organisms within a few decades, and the Antarctic by mid-century. This is pure chemistry; the vagaries of climate do not apply to this forecast.

OA is expected to impact commercial fisheries worldwide, threatening a food source for hundreds of millions of people  as well as a multi-billion dollar industry. In the United States alone, ocean-related tourism, recreation and fishing are responsible for more than 2 million jobs.

Shellfish will be affected directly, thus impacting finfish who feed on them. For example, pteropods—tiny marine snails that are particularly sensitive to rises in acidity— comprise 60 percent of the diet for Alaska’s juvenile pink salmon. And this affects diets farther up the food chain, as a diminished salmon population would lead to less fish on our tables.

Coral reefs will be especially hard hit by ocean acidification. As ocean acidity rises, corals will begin to erode faster than they can grow, and reef structures will be lost worldwide. Scientists predict that by the time atmospheric CO2 reaches 560 parts per million (a level which could happen which could happen by mid-century; we are currently nearing 400 ppm), coral reefs will cease to grow and even begin to dissolve. Areas that depend on healthy coral reefs for food, shoreline protection, and lucrative tourism industries will be profoundly impacted by their loss.

This sounds like a serious threat… As have all of the other alarmist clarion calls to halt capitalism in the name of the most recent environmental causes célèbres.  Since all of the previous environmental extremist causes célèbres have proven to be totally without merit, it’s a fair assumption that Ocean Acidification might also be lacking in merit.  Just to be fair, before pitching Ocean Acidification into the dustbin of junk science along with Anthropogenic Global Warming, Ozone Holes, DDT, etc., let’s look at the science.

The answers to the following questions will tell us whether or not CO2-driven ocean acidification is a genuine scientific concern: 

1. Is atmospheric CO2 acidifying the oceans?
2. Is there any evidence that reefs have been damaged by CO2-driven ocean acidification and/or global warming?
3. Does the geological record support the oceanic acidification hypothesis?  

 

 Is atmospheric CO2 acidifying the oceans?

Before we can answer this question, we have to understand a bit about how the oceans make limestone and other carbonate rocks.   The Carbonate Compensation Depth (CCD or Lysocline) is the depth at which carbonate shells dissolve faster than they accumulate. That depth is primarily determined by several factors…

-Water temperature
-Depth (pressure)
-CO2 concentration
-pH (high pH values aid in carbonate preservation)
-Amount of carbonate sediment supply
-Amount of terrigenous sediment supply

Calcium carbonate solubility increases with increasing carbon dioxide content, lower temperatures, and increasing pressure.

SOURCE

What evidence do we have that the lysocline or CCD has been becoming shallower or that the oceans have been acidifying over the last 250 years?   The answer is: Almost none.

From Pelejero et al., 2005…

The actual trend and range of natural variability in oceanic pH remains largely unknown, yet it is crucial to understand the possible consequences of acidification on marine ecosystems. A reliable proxy record is needed to assess long-term trends and variability in seawater pH. Instrumental records of the seawater CO₂ system, such as those collected at the Hawaii Ocean Time Series Station, which only commenced in 1989 (12), are short. In this Report, we present a reconstruction of seawater pH spanning the last three centuries, based on the boron isotopic composition ( ¹¹B) (13) of a long-lived massive coral (Porites) from Flinders Reef in the western Coral Sea…

[...]

Pelejero et al., 2005, Fig. 2. Record of Flinders Reef coral 11B, reconstructed oceanic pH, aragonite saturation state, PDO and IPO indices, and coral calcification parameters. (A) Flinders Reef coral 11B as a proxy for surface-ocean pH (24); 11B measurements for all 5-year intervals are available in table S1. (B) Indices of the PDO (28, 39) and the IPO (27) averaged over the same 5-year intervals as the coral pH data. Gray curves in panels (A) and (B) are the outputs of Gaussian filtering of coral pH and IPO values, respectively, at a frequency of 0.02 ± 0.01 year–1, which represent the 1/50-year component of the pH variation (fig. S2). (C) Comparison of high-resolution coral Sr/Ca (plotted to identify the seasonal cycle of SST) (32), 11B-derived pH, and wind speed recorded at the Willis Island meteorological station (data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology) (40). Note the covariation of wind speed and seawater pH; strong winds generally occur at times of high pH, and weak winds generally occur at times of low pH. All high-resolution 11B measurements are available in table S2. (D) Aragonite saturation state, , where is the stoichiometric solubility product of aragonite, calculated from our reconstructed pH assuming constant alkalinity (24). (E) Coral extension and calcification rates obtained from coral density measured by gamma ray densitometry (38).

[...]

Although the lowest ¹¹B value for the entire record corresponds to the 5-year average around 1988 [23.0 per mil ( ), 7.91 pH units; Fig. 2A and table S1], there is no notable trend toward lower ¹¹B values. The dominant feature of the coral ¹¹B record is a clear interdecadal oscillation of pH, with ¹¹B values ranging between 23 and 25 (7.9 and 8.2 pH units; Fig. 2A). Spectral analysis of the coral pH record demonstrates a substantial cyclicity of about 50 years (Fig. 2A and fig. S2). Moreover, the variation in pH is synchronous with the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) (27), the Pacific-wide equivalent of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) (28), which is also well represented by a 50- to 70-year cyclicity (29) (Fig. 2B and fig. S2). The IPO is well represented by a spatial pattern of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies over the Pacific Ocean, such that the index is positive when the equatorial Pacific is warm and the southwest Pacific and central North Pacific are cold. This pattern of interdecadal climate variability shares similarities with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), with periods of positive and negative IPO values displaying climatic patterns similar to El Niño and La Niña, respectively (30, 31).

Rather than finding a secular trend of declining pH (ocean acidification), Pelejero et al. found that oceanic pH changes cyclically along with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and El Niño/La Niña cycle.  So there really is no solid evidence that the oceans have been acidifying since mankind started to burn fossil fuels.

Is there any evidence that reefs have been damaged by CO2-driven ocean acidification and/or global warming?

Using the data from Pelejero et al., 2005, I found no correlation between pH and reef calcification rates…

 

Flinders Reef: Calcification Rate vs. pH (Pelejero et al., 2005)

 

 

 

 

On top of that… There is solid evidence that elevated atmospheric CO2 levels have actually caused carbonate deposition to increase over the last 220 years (Iglesias-Rodriguez et al., 2008)…

Iglesias-Rodriguez et al., 2008, Fig. 4. Average mass of CaCO3 per coccolith in core RAPID 21-12-B and atmospheric CO2. The average mass of CaCO3 per coccolith in core RAPID 21-12-B (open circles) increased from 1.08 x 10–11 to 1.55 x 10–11 g between 1780 and the modern day, with an accelerated increase over recent decades. The increase in average pre="average ">coccolith mass correlates with rising atmospheric PCO2, as recorded in the Siple ice core (gray circles) (26) and instrumentally at Mauna Loa (black circles) (38), every 10th and 5th data point shown, respectively. Error bars represent 1 SD as calculated from replicate analyses. Samples with a standard deviation greater than 0.05 were discarded. The smoothed curve for the average coccolith mass was calculated using a 20% locally weighted least-squares error method.

And when sudden increases of atmospheric CO2 have been tested under laboratory conditions, “otoliths (aragonite ear bones) of young fish grown under high CO2 (low pH) conditions are larger than normal, contrary to expectation” (Checkley et al., 2009).

There is no evidence to support the notion that rising atmospheric CO2 levels have ever caused ocean acidification… And the hypothesis has been falsified under empirical conditions.

Does the geological record support the oceanic acidification hypothesis?

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was a period of significant global warming approximately 55 million years ago and has often been cited as a geological analogy for the modern threat of ocean acidification. There is solid evidence that the Lysocline “shoaled” or became shallower for a brief period of time during the PETM. Several cores obtained from the Walvis Ridge area in the South Atlantic during Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 208 contained a layer of red clay at the P-E boundary in the middle of an extensive carbonate ooze section (Zachos et al., 2005). This certainly indicates a disruption of the lysocline during the PETM; but it doesn’t prove that it was ocean acidification.

The PETM was a period of extensive submarine and subaerial volcanic activity (Storey et al., 2007) and pedogenic carbonate reconstructions do support the possibility that seafloor methane hydrates released by that volcanic activity may have sharply increased oceanic CO2 saturation.

But… The terrigenous paleobotanical evidence does not support elevated atmospheric CO2 levels during the PETM (Royer et al., 2001). The SI data indicate CO2 levels in North America to have been between 300 and 400 ppmv during the PETM.

So, the PETM may have been an example of ocean acdification… But there is NO evidence that it was caused by a sharp increase in atmospheric CO2 levels.

Some have asserted that there is no geological precedent; claiming atmospheric CO2 concentrations have risen faster in the last 150 years than at any time in recent geological history.  Ice core-derived CO2 data certainly do indicate that CO2 has not risen above ~310 ppmv at any point in the last 600,000 years and that it varies little at the decade or century scale.  However, there are other methods for estimating past atmospheric CO2 concentrations. 

Plants “breath” CO2 through microscopic epidermal pores called stomata.  The density of plant stomata varies inversely with the atmospheric partial pressure of CO2.  Several recent studies of plant stomata from living, herbarium and fossil samples of plant tissue have shown that atmospheric CO2 fluctuations comparable to that seen in the industrial era have been fairly common throughout the Holocene and Recent times.

Plant stomata measurements reveal large variations in atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the tast 2,000 years that are not apparent in ice core data (Kouwenberg, 2004)…

 

Kouwenberg (2004) Figure 5.4: Reconstruction of paleo-atmospheric CO2 levels when stomatal frequency of fossil needles is converted to CO2 mixing ratios using the relation between CO2 and TSDL as quantified in the training set. Black line represents a 3 point running average based on 3–5 needles per depth. Grey area indicates the RMSE in the calibration. White diamonds are data measured in the Taylor Dome ice core (Indermühle et al., 1999); white squares CO2 measurements from the Law Dome ice-core (Etheridge et al., 1996). Inset: Training set of TSDL response of Tsuga heterophylla needles from the Pacific Northwest region to CO2 changes over the past century (Chapter 4).

Century-scale fluctuations in atmospheric CO2 concentrations have also been demonstrated in the early Holocene (Wagner et al., 1999)…

(Wagner et al., 1999)Fig. 1. (A) Mean SI values (±1 ) for B. pendula and B. pubescens from the early Holocene part of the Borchert section (Netherlands; 52.23°N, 7.00°E) and reconstructed CO2 concentrations. The scale of the section is in centimeters. Three lithological (Lith.) units can be recognized (18): a basal gyttja (=), succeeded by Drepanocladus peat (//), which is subsequently overlain by Sphagnum peat ( ). Six conventional 14C dates (in years before the present) are available (indicated by circled numbers): 1, 10,070 ± 90; 2, 9930 ± 45; 3, 9685 ± 90; 4, 9770 ± 90; 5, 9730 ± 50; and 6, 9380 ± 80. Summary pollen diagram includes arboreal pollen (white area) with Pinus ( ) and with Betula ( ) and nonarboreal pollen with Gramineae ( ) and with Cyperaceae, upland herbs, and Ericales ( ). Regional climatic phases after (18): YD, Younger Dryas; Fr., Friesland phase; Ra., Rammelbeek phase; and LP, Late Preboreal. For analytical method, see (13). Quantification of CO2 concentrations according to the rate of historical CO2 responsiveness of European tree birches (Fig. 2). P indicates the reconstructed position of the Preboreal Oscillation.

If the plant stomata data are correct, the increase in atmospheric CO2 that has occurred over the last 150 years is not anomalous. Past CO2 increases of similar magnitude and rate have not caused ocean acidification.

Conclusion

Once again, we have an environmental catastrophe that is entirely supported by predictive computer models and totally unsupported by correlative and empirical scientific data.  We can safely pitch ocean acidification into the dustbin of junk science.

2,000 Years of Climate Change

I was playing around with Moberg’s 2005 paleoclimate reconstruction and found something “funny”. Moberg’s reconstruction runs from 1 AD to 1979 AD. I calculated an average annual anomaly for the UAH Lower Trop., normalized it to Moberg and tacked it onto the end (not quite “apples to apples”; but it gets us 2008 years of temperature data).

I then applied a couple of moving averages (31-yr and 101-yr) and a linear trend-line… The funniest thing happened: The linear trend-line is flat as a pancake (with just a hint of negative slope)…

The Modern Warming that began in the late 19th century is remarkably similar to the Medieval Warm Period (~800 AD – 1300 AD). The most anomalous climate feature of the last two millennia is the Little Ice Age (~1300 AD – 1880 AD); which was considerably colder than the cool period preceding the Medieval Warm Period (the Dark Ages).

The only anomalous feature during the Modern Warming is the year 1998… Although it’s difficult to assess how anomalous it is because the proxy data used by Moberg don’t have anywhere near the resolution of the modern satellite temperature data.

I plotted the Hadley Northern Hemisphere temperature anomalies from 1840-2009 against the Moberg’s reconstruction of the early Medieval Warm Period.  The two curves exhibit remarkably similar frequencies and amplitudes…

Moberg's Medieval Warm Period Reconstruction bears an uncanny resemblance to the Modern Warming Period.

So much for unprecedented climate change!

Could a “Carbon Police State” be in our immediate future?

Could a “Carbon Police State” be in our immediate future?

New climate strategy: track the world’s wealthiest

06 Jul 2009

* World’s richest emit about half of Earth’s carbon

* Tracking the wealthy could break climate impasseBy Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent

* New method would follow individual greenhouse emissions

 

WASHINGTON, July 6 (Reuters) – To fairly divide the climate change fight between rich and poor, a new study suggests basing targets for emission cuts on the number of wealthy people, who are also the biggest greenhouse gas emitters, in a country.

Since about half the planet’s climate-warming emissions come from less than a billion of its people, it makes sense to follow these rich folks when setting national targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions, the authors wrote on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…

[...]

The study suggests setting a uniform international cap on how much carbon dioxide each person could emit in order to limit global emissions; since rich people emit more, they are the ones likely to reach or exceed this cap, whether they live in a rich country or a poor one…LINK

How in the heck could our government enforce a “uniform international cap on” individual “carbon dioxide” emissions? By establishing a “Carbon Police State.” Goodbye EPA…Hello Enviro-Gestapo!

In the meantime…The Earth continues to be no warmer now than it was 30 years ago…

UAH Lower Trop

 

Our letter to the 8 Republicans who voted for Cap & Trade…

Our letter to the 8 Republicans who voted for Cap & Trade…

The Honorable Mary Bono Mack June 27, 2009
United States Representative
104 Cannon House Office Bldg
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Representative Bono Mack,

It deeply saddened us that you voted for the Cap & Trade bill.

There has never been any scientific evidence that atmospheric carbon dioxide has ever driven climate change on Earth at any time in the last 600 million years. The Earth did warm slightly in the late 20th century; however there has been no global warming since 1998.

The Earth’s climate oscillates over several natural cycles with varying amplitudes and frequencies. A freshman geology or geophysics student would understand this.

You have aided and abetted the UN (in the form of the IPCC) and charlatans like Al Gore and Dr. James Hansen (NASA-GISS) in the perpetration of the most outrageous fraud in human history.

If you have an opponent in the 2010 Republican primary, we shall be sure to send him or her a very generous campaign contribution.

Sincerely,

David H. Middleton
Exploration Geophysicist

Elizabeth Quintero
Consulting Geoscientist

Here are the other seven traitors…

The Honorable Mike Castle
United States Representative
1233 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Mark Steven Kirk
United States Representative
1030 Longworth HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable Leonard Lance
United States Representative
114 Cannon HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable Frank LoBiondo
United States Representative
2427 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable John McHugh
United States Representative
2366 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-3223

The Honorable Dave Reichert
United States Representative
1730 Longworth Building
Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Chris Smith
United States Representative
2373 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

We will also be composing “thank you” letters to the 44 Democrats who put the nation above partisan politics and junk science by voting against cap & trade.

The government cannot simply legislate cheap and green energy sources into existence. There are only two ways that wind and solar can compete with coal and natural gas: Government subsidies for wind & solar or huge taxes on coal and natural gas.

The utility companies aren’t going to foot the bill…The consumers are going to foot the bill…Or freeze in the dark.

The same thing will happen with oil and gasoline prices.

It won’t be too expensive…at first – Waxman gave away 80% of the carbon credits to utility and refining companies in Democrat congressional districts in exchange for votes.

But the fact remains…You cannot amend or legislate around the laws of thermodynamics; and you cannot artificially increase the cost of energy without taking away posterity.

The funniest thing is that this will have ZERO effect on the Earth’s climate. Even if the Gorebots’ junk science was valid – Their own calculations say that a large reduction in US greenhouse gas emissions will yield less than 0.04 °C reduction in warming by the year 2050. But their science is so bad, it’s not even wrong. It’s worse than Creation Science. There has been no “global” warming since 1998. The Earth’s average temperature is almost exactly where it was in 1979…

Global temperatures are no warmer now than they were 30 years ago.

RIP “Thermohaline Catastrophe”

In the movie The Day After Tomorrow, global warming caused a rapid onset of glaciation because meltwater shut down the “conveyor” current and the Gulf Stream.

For 50 years it had been assumed that the northward flowing warm Gulf Stream had a southward flowing cold counterpart deeper in the ocean.  This “conveyor belt” is known as Thermohaline Circulation (THC). 

One of the threats of global warming was the possibility of a “Thermohaline Catastrophe”.  If too much fresh water suddenly was dumped into the North Atlantic from melting ice…the “conveyor belt” would shut down.  This was thought to be a possible cause of rapid onsets of past glaciations.

This theory has taken a beating over the past few years.

According to Wallace Broecker, the father of the THC catastrophe theory, “the threat (of an anthropogenic thermohaline catastrophe) will be far smaller than previously envisioned” (Geological Perspectives of Global Climate Change edited by Lee Gerhard).  Dennis Quaid’s character in The Day After Tomorrow  was very loosely based on Wallace Broecker.

The best evidence for a past THC catastrophe had always been the Younger Dryas mini-ice age early in the Holocene.  For quite a long time it was believed that the failure of an ice dam holding bake glacial Lake Agassiz in Canada had dumped so much water into the North Atlantic that it shut down the “conveyor belt” and caused a THC catastrophe.  But then a few years ago, it was shown that the Agassiz ice dam failed well after the Younger Dryas…Testing the Lake Agassiz Meltwater Trigger for the Younger Dryas, Lowell, EOS, October 4, 2005…

Well, recently it was also determined that Pleistocene changes in ocean circulation followed and did not lead climate changes… Ice Age Ocean Circulation Reacted To, Did Not Cause, Climate Change At Glacial Boundaries, Science Daily, May 1, 2005…<a

Now it appears that there is no such thing as a “conveyor belt” current…

Cold Water Ocean Circulation Doesn’t Work As Expected

ScienceDaily (May 14, 2009) — The familiar model of Atlantic ocean currents that shows a discrete “conveyor belt” of deep, cold water flowing southward from the Labrador Sea is probably all wet.

New research led by Duke University and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution relied on an armada of sophisticated floats to show that much of this water, originating in the sea between Newfoundland and Greenland, is diverted generally eastward by the time it flows as far south as Massachusetts. From there it disburses to the depths in complex ways that are difficult to follow.

A 50-year-old model of ocean currents had shown this southbound subsurface flow of cold water forming a continuous loop with the familiar northbound flow of warm water on the surface, called the Gulf Stream.

“Everybody always thought this deep flow operated like a conveyor belt, but what we are saying is that concept doesn’t hold anymore,” said Duke oceanographer Susan Lozier. “So it’s going to be more difficult to measure these climate change signals in the deep ocean.”

And since cold Labrador seawater is thought to influence and perhaps moderate human-caused climate change, this finding may affect the work of global warming forecasters…LINK

That last paragraph is really funny.  The only “evidence” for “human-caused climate change” comes from General Circulation Models.  All of those models assumed that there was a “conveyor belt” current. 

The only “evidence” for “human-caused climate change” comes from General Circulation Models.  All of those models assumed that there was a “conveyor belt” current. 

All of those models were already wrong…Now they are all even wronger…:))

In the meantime, the Earth continues to ignore the models and ignore the CO2…

 

IPCC Fourth Assessment Report vs. Satellite Temperature Data

None of the IPCC models predicted the global cooling that has occured over the last six to ten years. 

CO2 does not drive climate change…

Did you know that temperature changes over the last 150 years or so don't correlate with atmospheric CO2 levels?

The Sun (and the stars) drive climate change…

Who'd have guessed that climate change correlates almost exactly with changes in solar activity?

The Sun has been very quiet for the past few years…And satellite temperature measurements show that all of the global warming from 1979-2003 has been reversed in just the last few years…

 

Are you surprised that the satellite data show that it's no warmer now than it was in 1979?