Atmospheric CO2 has gone up 20% since 1960

[casebro]

Most obvious thing I see is that we seem to have these temp spikes every ohhh, 100,000 years. We are having ANOTHER ONE now. Right on schedule. Man has burnt lots of CO2. It's a coincidence.

Oh, you'll say "But the ice coreds don't show any CO2 spike THIS high" , to which I will say : Just exactly what is the acuity of CO2 in ice cores? Have the ice cores blurred 30 year long spikes into a 30 year long bulge? They have had at least 100,000 years for the blurring to take place.

It's all part of a natural cycle. Latest satellite data show we have entered a cooling trend. It's over folks.

 

[MervinFerd]

Bingo!

I am not qualified to say if that is right or wrong.

BINGO.

Years of study and research really do count for something.

 

[mhaze]

Which may be partly because the greenhouse gas increase vs. temperature rise equation does not have a linear relationship. According to some sources, it is a log one, and we are now at the point in the curve where modest CO₂ increases have a small and decreasing effect on greenhouse warming.

I am not qualified to say if that is right or wrong.

Sure, it is a log relation.

 

[casebro]

OUCH- another thought just struck me.

IF the co2 increase follows the heating, (the soda pop analogy fits that) then high CO2 levels precede cooling...

So just what is the acuity of the proxies used? Ice cores and tree rings, things like that. If ice core CO2 levels are off +/- 50 years, and temp proxies are also +/- 50 years, then all the scientific data is only as good as +/- 100 years. Which looks adequate to confuse the chicken/egg scenario.

 

[MervinFerd]

Simple Answer: YES

are we SURE that the CO2 increases temperature, and not the reverse?

YES.

It's a matter of rather basic physics. Most High School Conceptual Physics texts will have an explanation.

If you have not taken High School Physics, perhaps you should not be trying to figure this out for yourself.

 

[brumsen]

Try this. Notice the chart is chronological, left to right. Notice that the blue line, when on an upward slope, showing increasing temperature, preceeds the red line on an upward slope, showing CO₂ concentration. So temperature variation comes before CO₂. Does that make it clearer?

It doesn't. Not from where I look.

I look at the tops, and it seems to me they more or less coincide; or perhaps the red tops precede ever so slightly. Hard to tell, with that timescale.

 

[MervinFerd]

-why is a 21% increase in atmospheric CO2 such a horrible thing?

1. Because it is a significant change on a global scale, caused by us, and happening at a geologically enormous rate.
2. Because, by simple physics, this should cause a significant increase in global temperature, which is observed. (The total increase is about 35% since the beginning of the industrial age.)
3. Because the CO2 concentrations continues to increase each year. If this continues for another hundred years, or so, global climate change will be catastrophic and irreversible. Take a ruler and extend your curve out another 50 or 100 years.

-do the ice core records show that a CO2 increase of 21% in previous years was followed by a massive average temperature increase?

You are parroting denialist nonsense, which strongly suggests your questions are not posed in good faith. As you undoubtedly know, there are periods when temperature increases precede CO2 increases. The scientists who actually understand the data and theory explain that temperature increases from other causes will lead to CO2 increases. Which you would know if you had actually made an honest effort to understand the issues.

Good Bye.

 

[mhaze]

well, my final...FINAL question is: are we SURE that the CO2 increases temperature, and not the reverse? convince me of that, and I am sold.

Why would anyone want to sell you on views on a scientific subject?

1. Because it is a significant change on a global scale, caused by us, and happening at a geologically enormous rate.
2. Because, by simple physics, this should cause a significant increase in global temperature, which is observed. (The total increase is about 35% since the beginning of the industrial age.)
3. Because the CO2 concentrations continues to increase each year. If this continues for another hundred years, or so, global climate change will be catastrophic and irreversible. Take a ruler and extend your curve out another 50 or 100 years.

You are parroting denialist nonsense, which strongly suggests your questions are not posed in good faith. As you undoubtedly know, there are periods when temperature increases precede CO2 increases. The scientists who actually understand the data and theory explain that temperature increases from other causes will lead to CO2 increases. Which you would know if you had actually made an honest effort to understand the issues.

Good Bye.

It is you are the parrot of nonsense, as well as one who crassly insults those who ask honest questions.

http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/09/end-of-last-ice-age-co2-innocent.html

It doesn't. Not from where I look.

I look at the tops, and it seems to me they more or less coincide; or perhaps the red tops precede ever so slightly. Hard to tell, with that timescale.

Yes, it is hard to tell on the graph by visual examination. But the data on those timescales shows for those historical periodsthe direction of causality to be inc T --> inc CO2.

A clearer chart is here. Go down to "What does the 800-year lag mean"

http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/07/carbon-dioxide-and-temperatures-ice.html

There have been many papers that found and reported the lag. One of the newest and most accurate ones is this 2003 paper in Science by Caillon et al. (full text, click).

 

[macdoc]

Parky - links for info from mainstream science sources.. the first one is particularly good as a strong over view ofhow the climate functions....

Climate book - new and very up to date - worth the time http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/ClimateBook/ClimateVol1.pdf
Background
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/summary.htm

Good explanation carbon cycle and atmosphere
http://wufs.wustl.edu/pathfinder/path201_07/notes/notes_11_13_07.htm

Basics for atmosphere
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7o.html

Greenhouse
http://www.natcap.org/sitepages/pid66.php

Recent Climate Change Science, Global Targets and the Global Climate Emergency
http://bravenewclimate.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/recent_climate_change_science_kw.pdf


Where to start in the current crop of info including getting started pages as well not as detailed as the above.....

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/start-here/

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/myths/index.html

http://climate.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm

http://www.nature.com/climate/index.html

Put the denidiots on ignore - their time is past

 

[lomiller]

The main natural forcing (thing which actually initiates a period of warming/cooling) in the last few million years has been changes in the earth's orbit (the Milankovich cycles) which cause gradual increases/reductions in the amount of solar energy reaching the earth. These are what caused the Ice Ages to begin and end, but they are far too small to account for the magnitude of the temperature changes. What happened is that positive feedbacks kicked in which accelerated and magnified the temperature changes.

Of the three Milankovitch cycles that effect long term climate cycles only orbital eccentricity causes a net change in the solar radiation that reaches the earth. All three (precession, obliquity, and eccentricity) have an effect on when/where that solar energy arrives.

In general ice ages track with the amount of solar radiation received in the northern hemisphere summer. The differing response of land and water and the relative amount of each in the NH and SH play a key role in how planetary temperature reacts and how much CO2 is in the atmosphere as a result.

 

[lomiller]

Most obvious thing I see is that we seem to have these temp spikes every ohhh, 100,000 years. We are having ANOTHER ONE now. Right on schedule.

As mentioned above that 100 000 year cycle is predictable from the earths orbit. The “spike” you refer to occurred ~14 000 years ago and peaked 8600 years ago. We should be in a 25 000 year cooling trend at which point the next glacation would occur. In fact we had just such a cooling trend until 100 years ago at which point it changed to very rapid warming of the type not seen outside the end of ice ages.

 

[Michael Mozina]

I am basing this number on the following chart. It shows CO2 ppm in 1960 at about 316 ppm and at about 385 ppm in 2009. That is a 21% increase in 59 years.

So, my first question is:

-why is a 21% increase in atmospheric CO2 such a horrible thing?

and second question is:

-do the ice core records show that a CO2 increase of 21% in previous years was followed by a massive average temperature increase?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090913134030.htm

This article suggests that the "tipping point' might be quite a bit higher than it is today (760 PPM), but frankly IMO we need to wean ourselves from fossil fuels pretty quickly.

 

[lomiller]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090913134030.htm

This article suggests that the "tipping point' might be quite a bit higher than it is today (760 PPM), but frankly IMO we need to wean ourselves from fossil fuels pretty quickly.

There isn’t just one tipping point. The one mentioned in that article occurred 35 million years ago, and hitting it would mean the entire Antarctic would re-melt raising global sea levels by ~250 feet. No one is currently predicting anything like this.

It’s worth noting, however, that as the planet warms we can expect the Oceans to release CO2. To date, they have actually absorbed 1/2 the CO2 humans have emitted. If the oceans hit their own tipping point and start to spit this CO2 we could see atmospheric levels go over 500 ppm even if we stopped burning fossil fuels today. While such a tipping point probably exists, there is no clear consensus on where it is, so it’s likely if we started cutting back on CO2 emissions now we can avoid it.

 

[Raze]

well, my final...FINAL question is:

are we SURE that the CO2 increases temperature, and not the reverse?

convince me of that, and I am sold.

I would imagine that changes in CO₂ result in changes to the Earth's emissivity.

So without changes in the level of greenhouse gases, a higher temperature should lead to a higher rate of radiation of heat back to space (because the amount of heat radiated out is proportional to temperature⁴). But if the emissivity is right, that forth power relation should be countered.

Of course, lol, that's about as simplified as you can get = useless.

[...] global warming is real, and is caused by CO2 increases. [...]

I would say that global warming is caused by solar activity. Changes in greenhouse gases (among other factors) affect how heat is radiated back out to space. So the rate of energy radiation back out to space is proportional to what the greenhouse gases are doing, but ultimately climate change begins and ends with the sun. Yeah, this is just nitpicking.

 

[Beerina]

In a similar thread years ago, I pointed out that "carbon sequestration" was one possible way to deal with "too much C02".

Me: Interestingly, a decent amount of said sequestration could be done by letting yard waste into non-biodegrading landfills. [This slaps in the face the "environmentalist" political correctness that we need to compost, compost, compost! For the environment! And the laws everywhere that outlaw yard waste in landfills.]


Of course, they had a ready response: "Well, C02 really isn't very important as a global warming gas."



Since that's the Official Line of environmentalism, I hereby dismiss this thread as pointless.

 

[ben m]

Of course, they had a ready response: "Well, C02 really isn't very important as a global warming gas."

Aack! Oof! Morons.

Perhaps they were misremembering the following (true) fact: yard waste that decomposes anaerobically (likely in a landfill) tends to produce methane. Home compost piles---well-maintained ones, anyway---should be aerobic, and produce CO2 instead. Methane is much, much, much worse than CO2, so if the stuff is doomed to decompose then it's better to do it as compost than in an anaerobic landfill. However, given that lots of stuff is probably not going to decompose, understanding which is preferable is a question of numbers.

The standard "no yard waste in landfills" laws, AFAIK, have nothing to do with global warming, but rather with the facts that (a) trucking waste around is expensive and (b) the most-convenient municipal landfills are filling up; it's hard to open new ones and they're invariably further away (=more expensive still) than the ones they replace.

When we have a functioning carbon-credit system, if burying yard waste is really a carbon sink, then these dumps should be able to earn carbon credits for collecting and burying yard waste.

 

[Sherman Bay]

Try this. Notice the chart is chronological, left to right. Notice that the blue line, when on an upward slope, showing increasing temperature, preceeds the red line on an upward slope, showing CO2 concentration. So temperature variation comes before CO2. Does that make it clearer?

It doesn't. Not from where I look.

I look at the tops, and it seems to me they more or less coincide; or perhaps the red tops precede ever so slightly. Hard to tell, with that timescale.

Screw the tops. They follow the slopes. Note that the blue line starts up earlier in time than the red line. We're interested in sequence here, not peak values. If thing 2 follows thing 1 in time, then thing 2 could not cause thing 1.

Besides, the vertical scale is different for each (one is PPM, the other degrees). Someone trying to bias the graph could make the peaks smaller or larger relative to the other line by changing the scale and it wouldn't be wrong, just misleading at worst. But it would be fraudulent to shift the time scale of one relative to the other on the horizontal axis.

 

[Sherman Bay]

brumsen, take a look at this video, which is Part 2 of a video series I linked to earlier. This one goes directly to the sequence we are talking about, and below the video link is a direct quote from about 2:26:


Bob Carter: "Changing temperature precedes the change in carbon dioxide."

 

[Thunder]

Naysayers and skeptics should also keep in mind that according to the ice core data for the last 50 years that I posted, the great majority of the temperature fluxuations were above zero and NOT below zero. this shows a gradual warming trend over the last 50 years..not a cooling trend or no trend at all.

 

[Thunder]

Bob Carter: "Changing temperature precedes the change in carbon dioxide."

no...its the opposite. sorry bud.