sunsettommy
07-20-2007, 09:44 PM
ON WHY CO2 IS KNOWN NOT TO HAVE ACCUMULATED IN THE ATMOSPHERE & WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH CO2 IN THE MODERN ERA
By DR. Jefferey Glassman
EXCERPT:
Myles Goodman at Drexel posted the following question as a comment to the Acquittal of Carbon Dioxide:
You posit that CO2 does NOT accumulate in the atmosphere. How do you explain atmospheric concentrations of CO2 increasing over the last 100 years?
The Acquittal shows that carbon dioxide did not accumulate in the atmosphere during the paleo era of the Vostok ice cores. If it had, the fit of the complement of the solubility curve might have been improved by the addition of a constant. It was not. And because the CO2 presumably still follows the complement of the solubility curve, it should be increasing during the modern era of global warming in recovery from Earth's various ice epochs. These conclusions find support in a number of points in the IPCC reports.
So the answer to the post begins with supporting background on why CO2 is known not to accumulate in the atmosphere, and then goes on to other aspects of the model that global warming causes increases in CO2, which accounts for the last 100 years or so.
1. Estimates vary, but climatologists in the Consensus say that the atmosphere contains 730 GTons (PgC) of carbon and the uptake to the oceans alone is at least 90 GTons/year. It's a ninth grade algebra problem to calculate how long it takes to empty a bucket with 730 units at the rate of 90 units per year. If you throw in uptake by photosynthesis at 120 GTons/year and perhaps leaf water at the IPCC figure of 270 GTons/year, thus including everything in the IPCC's Third Assessment Report, 480 GTons a year is pouring out of the bucket.
Now throw in approximately 100% replenishment, and you have an eleventh grade physics or chemistry problem where the level in the bucket is only slowly changed but the solution is quickly diluted.
Regardless of which way one poses the problem, the existing CO2 in the atmosphere has a mean residence time of 1.5 years using IPCC data, 3.2 years using University of Colorado data, or 4.9 years using Texas A&M data. The half lives are 0.65 years, 1.83 years, and 3.0 years, respectively. This is not “decades to centuries” as proclaimed by the Consensus. Climate Change 2001, Technical Summary of the Working Group I Report, p. 25.
See The Carbon Cycle: past and present, http://www.colorado.edu/GeolSci/courses/GEOL3520/Topic16/Topic16.html & Introduction to Biogeochemical Cycles Chapter 4, http://www.colorado.edu/GeolSci/courses/GEOL1070/chap04/chapter4.html, UColo Biogeochem cycles.pdf; The Carbon Cycle, the Ocean, and the Iron Hypothesis, http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/carboncycle.htm
2. In 1985, Keeling provided two estimates of the residence time (the reciprocal of his global air-sea transfer coefficient) and uptake of CO2 in the entire oceans, based on different methods from different locale. They were 7.9 years for 2 GTons/year and 5.2 years for 4.35 GTons/year. Keeling, C.D. and R. Revelle, Effects of El Nino/Southern Oscillation on the Atmospheric Content of Carbon Dioxide, Meteoritics, Vol. 20, No.2, Part 2, June 30, 1985. No one today uses such small numbers for the uptake, so the residence time must be much less than Keeling suspected.
3. There are no separate, physical paths to pipe natural CO2 and anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere or to segregate them in any other reservoirs. There is a theory of plant isotopic preference, and a theory of isotopic bias comparing natural and manmade CO2, but the Consensus has not posited such an effect in the carbon cycle exchange between the atmosphere and the reservoirs. In fact, the Consensus accounts for the difference in the concentrations in carbon isotopes in the atmosphere and the ocean not by selective solubility but by selective photosynthesis in the ocean. Climate Change 2001, p. 207. Natural and anthropogenic are indiscriminately mixed in the atmosphere, and undergo similar if not identical residence times.
4. Sidebar: By losing its long residence time assumption, the Consensus finds its well-mixed conjecture invalidated. The admission in the TAR of CO2 gradients over the globe also contradicts its well-mixed claims. Independently, gradients must exist because of the highly concentrated outgassing of CO2 from equatorial waters, and the balancing concentrated polar uptake. Consequently, the concentration of CO2 depends on where it is measured. Keeling himself warned not to mix CO2 measurements without regard to sinks and sources. He used calibration techniques to mix records.
http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2007/06/on_why_co2_is_known_not_to_hav.html
More in the link.
By DR. Jefferey Glassman
EXCERPT:
Myles Goodman at Drexel posted the following question as a comment to the Acquittal of Carbon Dioxide:
You posit that CO2 does NOT accumulate in the atmosphere. How do you explain atmospheric concentrations of CO2 increasing over the last 100 years?
The Acquittal shows that carbon dioxide did not accumulate in the atmosphere during the paleo era of the Vostok ice cores. If it had, the fit of the complement of the solubility curve might have been improved by the addition of a constant. It was not. And because the CO2 presumably still follows the complement of the solubility curve, it should be increasing during the modern era of global warming in recovery from Earth's various ice epochs. These conclusions find support in a number of points in the IPCC reports.
So the answer to the post begins with supporting background on why CO2 is known not to accumulate in the atmosphere, and then goes on to other aspects of the model that global warming causes increases in CO2, which accounts for the last 100 years or so.
1. Estimates vary, but climatologists in the Consensus say that the atmosphere contains 730 GTons (PgC) of carbon and the uptake to the oceans alone is at least 90 GTons/year. It's a ninth grade algebra problem to calculate how long it takes to empty a bucket with 730 units at the rate of 90 units per year. If you throw in uptake by photosynthesis at 120 GTons/year and perhaps leaf water at the IPCC figure of 270 GTons/year, thus including everything in the IPCC's Third Assessment Report, 480 GTons a year is pouring out of the bucket.
Now throw in approximately 100% replenishment, and you have an eleventh grade physics or chemistry problem where the level in the bucket is only slowly changed but the solution is quickly diluted.
Regardless of which way one poses the problem, the existing CO2 in the atmosphere has a mean residence time of 1.5 years using IPCC data, 3.2 years using University of Colorado data, or 4.9 years using Texas A&M data. The half lives are 0.65 years, 1.83 years, and 3.0 years, respectively. This is not “decades to centuries” as proclaimed by the Consensus. Climate Change 2001, Technical Summary of the Working Group I Report, p. 25.
See The Carbon Cycle: past and present, http://www.colorado.edu/GeolSci/courses/GEOL3520/Topic16/Topic16.html & Introduction to Biogeochemical Cycles Chapter 4, http://www.colorado.edu/GeolSci/courses/GEOL1070/chap04/chapter4.html, UColo Biogeochem cycles.pdf; The Carbon Cycle, the Ocean, and the Iron Hypothesis, http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/carboncycle.htm
2. In 1985, Keeling provided two estimates of the residence time (the reciprocal of his global air-sea transfer coefficient) and uptake of CO2 in the entire oceans, based on different methods from different locale. They were 7.9 years for 2 GTons/year and 5.2 years for 4.35 GTons/year. Keeling, C.D. and R. Revelle, Effects of El Nino/Southern Oscillation on the Atmospheric Content of Carbon Dioxide, Meteoritics, Vol. 20, No.2, Part 2, June 30, 1985. No one today uses such small numbers for the uptake, so the residence time must be much less than Keeling suspected.
3. There are no separate, physical paths to pipe natural CO2 and anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere or to segregate them in any other reservoirs. There is a theory of plant isotopic preference, and a theory of isotopic bias comparing natural and manmade CO2, but the Consensus has not posited such an effect in the carbon cycle exchange between the atmosphere and the reservoirs. In fact, the Consensus accounts for the difference in the concentrations in carbon isotopes in the atmosphere and the ocean not by selective solubility but by selective photosynthesis in the ocean. Climate Change 2001, p. 207. Natural and anthropogenic are indiscriminately mixed in the atmosphere, and undergo similar if not identical residence times.
4. Sidebar: By losing its long residence time assumption, the Consensus finds its well-mixed conjecture invalidated. The admission in the TAR of CO2 gradients over the globe also contradicts its well-mixed claims. Independently, gradients must exist because of the highly concentrated outgassing of CO2 from equatorial waters, and the balancing concentrated polar uptake. Consequently, the concentration of CO2 depends on where it is measured. Keeling himself warned not to mix CO2 measurements without regard to sinks and sources. He used calibration techniques to mix records.
http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2007/06/on_why_co2_is_known_not_to_hav.html
More in the link.