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Post by scpg02 on Jul 2, 2010 6:52:57 GMT
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Post by nautonnier on Jul 2, 2010 6:55:55 GMT
I wonder if that will show up in the Mauna Loa record? As it was LAST year - it should already be an obvious plateau in the otherwise monotonic climb in ppm (with its diurnal variations) or perhaps they are too good at hiding declines .
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Post by steve on Jul 2, 2010 7:32:24 GMT
Nautonnier,
No growth in emissions means no growth. Not zero emissions.
In the previous few decades (during most of which emissions were lower than 2008 or 2009) levels of CO2 have gone up 1-2ppm per year. If emissions drop by a 10% I suppose the level might go up between 0.9-1.8ppm - a difference that is quite low compared with the variability.
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Post by scpg02 on Jul 2, 2010 7:49:32 GMT
I wonder if that will show up in the Mauna Loa record? As it was LAST year - it should already be an obvious plateau in the otherwise monotonic climb in ppm (with its diurnal variations) or perhaps they are too good at hiding declines . I'll see if I have the last graph Ferdinand posted to CS. As I recall it was the same increase we had been seeing.
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Post by glc on Jul 2, 2010 10:33:58 GMT
Nautonnier, No growth in emissions means no growth. Not zero emissions. In the previous few decades (during most of which emissions were lower than 2008 or 2009) levels of CO2 have gone up 1-2ppm per year. If emissions drop by a 10% I suppose the level might go up between 0.9-1.8ppm - a difference that is quite low compared with the variability. DEAR ALL Steve has hit the nail firmly on the head. There is a huge misunderstanding about CO2 growth rates and absolute values both on this blog and, particularly, on WUWT. Here's a brief explanations using rounded (very) numbers. We (humans) emit ~8Gt C per year mainly through fossil fuel burning. This is equivalent to an extra 4 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. However, an amount equivalent to about half the annual excess is absorbed by the earth's systems, so we end up with ~2 ppm extra each year. The 2 ppm figure isn't always exactly the same. Sometimes it's bit more (e.g. in an El Nino year) - and sometimes a bit less (e.g. in a La Nina year). Using Steve's example of a 10% drop in emissions, only 7.2Gt C would be emitted which is equivalent to 3.6 ppm. If an amount equivalent to half of this is absorbed then we're left with an increase of 1.8 ppm. This would not even be detected. A "NO Change" in emissions should mean an increase in ppm similar to what happened in the previous year, but since 2008 was a La Nina year the increase in 2009 may be higher.
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Post by jurinko on Jul 2, 2010 10:38:32 GMT
More interesting than estimated emissions is the rate of growth of atmospheric CO2. It obviously follows SSTs and its growth has stabilized together with cooling oceans. If the growth will continue to decline with cooling oceans, obviously some part of its rise has been caused by degassing.
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Post by steve on Jul 2, 2010 11:41:06 GMT
Saying that some of the rise is due to degassing gives an erroneous impression when the SSTs are helping to govern a net flow of CO2 *into* not out of the oceans.
Using the word "obviously" a lot when it is not obvious and likely misleading is obviously misleading.
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Post by glc on Jul 2, 2010 11:48:38 GMT
If the growth will continue to decline with cooling oceans, obviously some part of its rise has been caused by degassing.
If you mean that the growth is greater in 'warm' years than in 'cold' years - then yes - that's more or less what I wrote in my previous post. However these are just fluctuations around a steadily rising trend. Only a very small proportion of the long term increase (~100 ppm) is due to 'degassing'. If it were more then we would see years when the growth was negative, e.g. 1998(warm) -> 1999 (cold).
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Post by nautonnier on Jul 2, 2010 12:45:38 GMT
Saying that some of the rise is due to degassing gives an erroneous impression when the SSTs are helping to govern a net flow of CO2 *into* not out of the oceans. Using the word "obviously" a lot when it is not obvious and likely misleading is obviously misleading. Thank you Steve - nice to see you acknowledge Henry's _ Law_ as opposed to the AGW _ hypothesis_ Perhaps you should try to understand that what Henry's Law actually means when it comes to absorption or 'outgassing' of CO 2. glc does not yet understand it as he is still of the 'nature only has so much capacity for CO 2 absorption' school of thought - a Henry's Law denier perhaps If there has been a continual INCREASE in rate of production of CO 2 - yet Mauna Loa shows a monotonic rise rather than an increasing rate of rise. And for the last year "A leading climate change monitor says global carbon dioxide emissions held steady last year" and Mauna Loa still shows the same continuing monotonic rise rather than a decrease in rate of rise... Then surely we are looking at something else rather than the number of SUV drivers. As ocean heat content and temperatures drop - I would expect to see Mauna Loa rate of rise reduce - in line with Henry's Law.
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Post by steve on Jul 2, 2010 13:04:23 GMT
Nautonnier, Mauna Loa doesn't show a monotonic rise. The gradient looks like it has steadily been going up since measurements begun. wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/mauna_loa_carbon_dioxide.pngAs the rate of rise is not reducing it could suggest that ocean heat content and temperatures are not dropping. While that is clearly the case, I would not suggest such a simple-minded link, since the ocean uptake/degassing is obviously going to be strongly dependent on local conditions. Another error you have made is assuming that Henry's law applies instantaneously. Given that the ocean is rather vast and deep, this is an unwise assumption to make. The predictions are that the levels of CO2 would drop quite quickly if emissions ceased suggesting that Henry is a little slow on the uptake, so to speak.
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Post by nautonnier on Jul 2, 2010 13:56:33 GMT
Nautonnier, Mauna Loa doesn't show a monotonic rise. The gradient looks like it has steadily been going up since measurements begun. wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/mauna_loa_carbon_dioxide.pngAs the rate of rise is not reducing it could suggest that ocean heat content and temperatures are not dropping. While that is clearly the case, I would not suggest such a simple-minded link, since the ocean uptake/degassing is obviously going to be strongly dependent on local conditions. Another error you have made is assuming that Henry's law applies instantaneously. Given that the ocean is rather vast and deep, this is an unwise assumption to make. The predictions are that the levels of CO2 would drop quite quickly if emissions ceased suggesting that Henry is a little slow on the uptake, so to speak. "Another error you have made is assuming that Henry's law applies instantaneously. Given that the ocean is rather vast and deep, this is an unwise assumption to make. "I am not making the mistake of assuming instantaneous effects from Henry's Law. You are too focused on just the ocean surface. Cloud droplets whose surface area far exceeds that of the oceans and which are pure cold water will absorb a considerable amount of atmospheric CO 2 much like industrial 'scrubbers' with water sprays do. When those droplets reach the surface as precipitation and the droplet temperature rises (or falls ) to ambient then there may or may not be some outgassing. This will tend to mask the inertia of the overall ocean system being linked directly to the surface temperature. (And remember we are only talking about the overturning ocean layer that is warmer or colder below the thermocline is effectively static.) The hypotheis that the entire CO 2 rise is attributable to the increase in ocean temperature since the Little Ice Age has not been falsified.
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Post by steve on Jul 2, 2010 14:09:29 GMT
Apparently even WUWT has given up spouting that sort of nonsense!
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Post by icefisher on Jul 2, 2010 15:35:47 GMT
If the growth will continue to decline with cooling oceans, obviously some part of its rise has been caused by degassing. If you mean that the growth is greater in 'warm' years than in 'cold' years - then yes - that's more or less what I wrote in my previous post. However these are just fluctuations around a steadily rising trend. Only a very small proportion of the long term increase (~100 ppm) is due to 'degassing'. I agree 100ppm is a pittance but it is about 90% of the total increase in CO2. Which corresponds favorably with 3 to 4% anthropogenic CO2 from fossil fuel burning currently in the atmosphere compared to the total increase in CO2 of about 40%. As we can see in the chart, beside the lines generally following the same shape as temperature rise (something that CO2 emissions does not do) leveling in the 2000's. If it were more then we would see years when the growth was negative, e.g. 1998(warm) -> 1999 (cold). You can also see the La Ninas and El Ninos in the record. (Pacific oscillations is something the moron science community on the east coast and UK never look at being still War of 1812 centered arguing about the Dalton Minimum by reading tree rings, ice cores, and rearranging tea leaves in the bottom of their tea cups) But the La Ninas are peaks not valleys as you suggest they should be!!Instead those La Ninas must be bringing carbon rich water that probably hasn't seen the surface for centuries and outgassing it in those big spikes on the chart. The big dips are mostly El Ninos where the carbon pump slows down and already mostly out gassed water languishes on the surface warming up from solar SW giving up still more CO2 because of a generally warming world. Where this record really gets exciting is in 1991. You can see the biggest down dip between 1991 and 1994. Is this a big El Nino? No it is an El Nino but not a big one. It also isn't cooling driven by a La Nina which accelerates the outgassing of CO2 rather than reduces it as a cooling planet would be expected to. Here we have a forcing that cools the planet with something other than carbon rich water from the deep but instead a volcanic eruption. Its Pinatubo! Here we can expect a cooling like response and it delivers. The carbon pump is still running but it has slowed down with an El Nino and we get a rather small .2 of a degree cooling and annual CO2 outgassing goes into the dumper. The rate dips well below 1ppm/year. Imagine if we had something besides an ocean overturning that cooled temperatures by .6degC? The PDO is capable of that but I am not sure you can count PDO coolings because we don't know the causes of them for sure. Could be wind driven then we would not expect a PDO cooling to reverse the carbon trend but it might increase it instead. OTOH, if its externally driven cooling by limiting SW (GCRs) then CO2 in the atmosphere might even decrease. The PDO may well be a combination of wind driven changes and GCRs. That might explain the stunted cooling phase of 3 to 6 decades ago. The relatively high solar cycles could have kept GCRs relatively high resulting in GLCs observations of a lack of trend in them while a shift in ocean currents brought cool water to the surface for outgassing. These fluctuations seem to have explanations suggesting anthropogenic contributions are some kind of curve corresponding to emission laying somewhere below the valleys marked by warming El Ninos. I figure the best measure in the interim short of some physics explaining the absorption/emission cycle is the 3 to 4% determined by isotope analysis. Folks will scream about that but they really have no science to suggest anything else. They can't trace it disappearing in the seasonal cycle, they can't tell me the physical process of how one isotope gets absorbed and another is forced to be emitted that would not have been emitted directly because one was absorbed. They know nothing of the carbon cycle beyond it exists. Hmmmmmmmmmm! I sense somebody wants to sentence me to a reeducation program of 6 years of gazing at icecores, Yamal 061, and stipped bark bristlecones!!!!!!! But puleeeze! I like coffee better than tea!Maybe GLCs typo above was Freudian huh?
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Post by icefisher on Jul 2, 2010 15:41:37 GMT
Apparently even WUWT has given up spouting that sort of nonsense! I have to agree on the "entire" CO2 rise. I think it is rather safe to say at least 10% of the rise is anthropogenic. GLC probably hit the split on the 110 part rise 100 natural leaving 10 ppm human by accident though.
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Post by boxman on Jul 2, 2010 16:46:09 GMT
I bet the trend will start to get flat if global temps start dropping for real.
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