I updated the video to correct a few errors in the ‘live interview’ by including text screens for clarity. eg the 93% bleaching and 22% of dead coral was only across the northern third of the GBR, which is not made clear by the ‘journalist’.
Advice on errors and corrections are welcome.
Thomassays
186 Hank Roberts asks: “Is the rate of (CO2ppm) increase increasing?”
Professor Betts and colleagues forecast the rise this year to be a record
2016 3.15 +/- 0.53 parts per million.
2015 3.05
2014 2.17
2013 2.10
2012 2.61
2011 1.88 http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/gr.html
2005 – 2014 2.11 ppm per year
1995 – 2004 1.87 ppm per year
1985 – 1994 1.42 ppm per year
1975 – 1984 1.44 ppm per year
1965 – 1974 1.06 ppm per year
1959 – 1964 (6 years only) 0.73 ppm per year https://www.co2.earth/co2-acceleration
“The direction of atmospheric CO2 has been constant for decades. Year after year since 1958 when Charles David Keeling started measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, earth’s background CO2 level has only gone up. Overall, the increases have been accelerating.” https://www.co2.earth/annual-co2
accelerate = increase in rate, amount, or extent.
What’s your opinion Hank?
Tony Weddlesays
sidd, I seem to remember reading somewhere that if emissions dropped to half, then atmospheric CO2 concentration would halt or even go down slightly but only for a few years before resuming a rise. I don’t recall if that decrease would need to happen abruptly or if it could happen slowly, with the same effect. Hopefully, someone here has a bit more knowledge on this.
Stan Gabrielsays
And what does everyone think about the statement that “it costs 7 trillion dollars a year to save the world”? This idea was given a lot of noise during the COP21 negotiations and it made the public even more sceptical of climate change action. See more: https://whatitmeans.atavist.com/cop21-quick-summary-of-facts
Killiansays
Mike, pay the Peanut Gallery no mind. They’re a group that has posted here for years and have become institutionalized in their group bullying and rudeness.
Thees ees a sci-ahnce site, Siiir! Do PLEASE follow pro-to-col at *awl* times! We shant be patient with mal-contents! Cite yo-ur sources, Siiiir! Show yo-ur maths, in detail, cle-ah-ly penn’ed, and acc-u-rate or there *will* be reck-on-ings!
Meh.
Remember that write-up I did in August on EN, CO2 and ASI? I never make a serious guess at the ASI till July each year, the variability is that high due to weather dominating year-to-year variability. Accurately, too, I might add. This time, a year early. How many months of record lows so far? And, golly-gee, not a single regression, statistical analysis of years of data, etc., in it. Just a simple correlation I noticed long ago and finally got around to gathering a little data for. Proven? No. But I don’t care. I’m not a scientist. That’s not my job. I made an observation, I am in process of backing it up and supporting my hypothesis. We’ll see what the ASI decides to do. Either way, it’s up to Serreze, et al., to do something with it and figure out the scientific validity, or non-validity, of the correlation, and cause.
What these arrogant yahoos have never figured out is there is more than one way to do things, and those that wish to can always take up the work they so strenuously whine about others not doing. They truly do not care about accuracy, discovery, or anything else. they sit here on this blog bullying people who do meaningful analyses because, yup, they *can’t.* How do we know? In the years since 2007 (and possibly 2005) since I’ve posted here, I recall not one of them ever coming up with anything novel whatsoever. One or two have tried. And their accuracy is no better than chance.
The fact is, good science is highly dependent on inspiration, insight, creativity. It’s not just numbers like the PG would have us believe. To me the AS acting as it has this year was a no-braner. Records? We’ll see. but the EN has absolutely had an effect. Again, proven? No, but find me a serious climate scientist who would claim otherwise.
Do your work. Ignore them. They’re just jealous they’ve got all their maths and can’tdo a darned thing with them but pick at others’ work.
Seriously, take what support you can and enjoy the rarity of it. The Peanut Gallery exists, much like superdelegates, to quash creativity.
They’re not any good at that, either. ;-)
As for CO2, I suspect the seasonality of the CO2 cycle is being affected like that of the ASI has been. Totally weird to get the highest dailies before May. That we had four consecutive days over 409 and then another little bout over 409 tells me we *may* be seeing a new pattern. Of curse, with EN, maybe that was the cause of the anomaly. If the average comes in at under 4.0 higher, just be glad. it may mean the annual rises ARE slowing.
Mike, you again point to “CO2Earth” — but what’s their basis for the statement you quote?
This is the problem with quoting second-hand sources that don’t cite the basis for their statements.
You don’t know if they’re just eyeballing the curve, or if someone has done the arithmetic.
Saying “people say that X” isn’t a respectable basis for making a claim like this.
Whether you’re saying something you want to believe, or don’t want to believe.
Reality is plenty scary enough.
Yes, eventually, I think no one will be surprised to find out things are getting worse. Keep predicting anything bad related to climate change, and eventually, the expectation will turn out to be correct, almost certainly.
Oh, that’s Thomas pointing to CO2Earth this time, not Mike.
Same point though.
Piotr, what do you think “emissions fell” means?
Can you put numbers on that statement?
Emissions = X, and then “emissions fell” so after that emissions = X minus how much?
Or show a screenshot of the “bathtub model” illustrating the settings you’re putting in that give you a result that confuses you?
Or — maybe you’re suggesting a hypothetical, not saying it’s actually happening?
Is that what you mean? If so that’s a whole different question, and as Tony W. says there are sources for that. This may help, though the full text is paywalled: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-006-9107-5#/page-1
Alfred Jonessays
Tony W,
CO2 absorption by natural systems is NOT dependent on emissions at all. Instead, it is based primarily on the lag (difference) between atmospheric concentration and ocean concentration, which is fairly simple, as well as the far more complicated interactions between CO2 concentration + nitrogen + water + other stuff and plant growth and CO2 concentration + temperature on the breaking down of dead stuff. It just so happens that currently about half of our emissions are absorbed. This ratio is COMPLETELY NON-SCIENTIFIC. Instead, it’s just a coincidence.
So, if we reduce emissions by whatever amount is currently not being absorbed, then two things would happen. First, atmospheric concentration would flatline for ONE year, and second, CO2 sinks would continue to fill with (essentially) no change in the rate. Thus, some of the lag would be “eaten up” and next year less CO2 would be absorbed. Thus, to maintain our constant atmospheric concentration, we’d have to emit less CO2 next year than we did this year.
We’d have to continue to decrease our emissions steadily year after year as the sinks catch up with the atmosphere, until, eventually, we hit zero emissions.
You asked about reducing slowly to 50%. Well, during that time atmospheric concentrations will increase, so the baseline will have shifted, and we’re talking apples and oranges. At 500ppm the difference between concentrations and equilibrium will be larger, so the absorption rate (at least for the ocean) will increase, changing the calculations, and really, even the question.
This is all based on the hypothesis that nature will play nice. It’s quite possible that we could drop emissions to zero immediately and atmospheric concentrations would dip, but as temperatures continue to rise in various sinks (it can take 1000 years(?) or so for permafrost and oceans to reach equilibrium), those sinks will become sources. Remember, only a tiny orbital nudge sends the Earth screaming from ice age to interglacial and back, and NOT all at once. Instead, it was an albedo nudge leads to a tiny temp increase leads to a tiny CO2 increase leads to a tiny temp increase leads to….
Remember, all that buried carbon we dug up is “in addition” to natural systems. So how do you fit “huge artificial CO2 injection” into the above series. especially with the “tiny orbital nudge” currently towards cooling? I seriously doubt anybody has a firm grasp on either future CO2 concentrations or temperature that would result from anthropogenic actions. Nature is big and lifeforms reproduce rapidly. Like James Hansen’s ice sheet melt doubling hypothesis, doubling of bacterial and insect activity repeatedly quite quickly mucks up our calculations. The Amazon and the boreal forests could both crumble extremely quickly. Would what replaces them increase or decrease CO2? (after the initial spike resulting from decay of the dead)
This is something we’ll have to experience to get even remotely close to an answer. As if we know how many of that huge flock of swans swirling overhead will land – or even whether they’re black or white. (Amazon to savanna might be beneficial CO2-wise after the spike, for example)
No daily numbers from CO2.earth for June 14, so here is the most recent weekly number:
Daily CO2
June 15, 2016: 407.31 ppm
June 15, 2015: 402.21 ppm (weekly average a wopping 5 plus ppm over same week a year ago)
May CO2
May 2016: 407.70 ppm
May 2015: 403.94 ppm
Once we get past the consumptive argument about the increase, we might get to the important questions: where is all this CO2 coming from? Are we seeing significant pulses of CO2 from the “natural” sources, like reduced ocean uptake, release from drying/warming peat and permafrost etc.
The link between our emissions (if we have an accurate read on that) and the level of CO2 in atmosphere is mediated by a lot of natural processes, so trying to review falling emission reports and then link them to a corresponding flattening of the level of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is a fools errand. In the end, none of that matters as much as the absolute level of CO2 and CO2e in the atmosphere. As that goes up from any source, heat rise will follow and we are testing the limit of the heat that the planet can have and still sustain the kind of environment that most living things need.
Here is the bottom line: we need to see the level of CO2 and CO2e in the atmosphere come to a steady state as soon as possible. Then we have to live in a way that allows those numbers to stop dropping. That is the task. Does anyone want to argue about those assertions?
turning off the computer now to head for the hills, will check back in next week with update on raw numbers. Read’m and weep.
The comments include the well known Girma, so read critically if at all.
Alfred Jonessays
Chuck H: Do you go by Al or Fred? I’ve been reading your diatribes and broadsides with interest. Waiting for you to say something of substance so I can respond.
AJ: Neither. I’ve never put what I go by on the internet. It would add nothing except risk.
It is hard to respond to that which you don’t understand. Perhaps you’d do better by asking questions? I’d be happy to try to teach you a bit, but I’m not confident in your ability to understand. What did you get on the SAT? I got an 800 math and 760 verbal (out of 800 each back then) So, compare our scores and then make an objective analysis of who’s Dunning-Kruger material.
You say you find my writing interesting. Thank you. Most folks I’ve met gives me the same compliments: I make them think and I come up with ideas and solutions that both make sense and that they’ve never heard of before. Put me in a room with experts on a subject I’m only vaguely familiar with and the same thing always happens. I’ll ask some ignorant questions and then get them past whatever has them stuck.
However, less open folks often just shut down. They retreat to their axioms, which are usually just blind spots. From what I know about you, you’re driving while 90% of your windshield and 100% of your other windows and mirrors are completely blocked. Wash your car, dude.
——–
BPL: The rate IS accelerating, but your numbers do nothing to prove that. You need the percentage increase year over year, not the increase in ppmv.
AJ: A typical denialist technique is to state a teensy factoid and then use it to hammer a huge truth. 401/400 = 1.0025. 402/401 = 1.002493765. 1.0025/1.002493765 = 1.000006. Thus Mike’s stance is correct to way beyond the significant digits used by either of you. Please learn how logarithms interact with significant digits before attacking somebody next time. Otherwise, you’ll have to remove “trend” from your vocabulary. Technically, there is no such thing as a linear trend. It’s a curve which approximates linear over a small section. Trends break down once the underlying curve becomes larger than the significant digits being used. Until then, whining about logarithms is just denialistesque tripe.
It’s a bit of a surprise how well the increase matches a system where the rate of increase is rising steadily. That would imply that the concentration is a quadratic function of time, which would compare (red line) to measured concentration (black line) thus:
co2_deseason_quad (picture at original page)
If correct, that means that the rate at which CO2 is increasing has been steadily getting faster. A direct measure of the rate of increase (by a sophisticated method, but simple ways paint essentially the same picture) also suggests a steady increase in the rate at which CO2 is rising:
co2_rate (picture at original page)
In 1960 CO2 was only going up by less than 1 ppm/year, but now it’s increasing by more than 2 ppm/year. And, alas, it shows no sign of slowing down — just going faster and faster.
Dang. I hate when the pessimistic eyeballs do get support for bad news from the statistics.
The El Nino bump will be over in a year or so, if it goes away.
omething unusual happened in April this year. Between March and April there was a record month to month jump in atmospheric CO2 recorded at Mauna Loa. It went up by 2.71 ppmv. That’s 0.6 ppmv higher than the previous highest month to month jump (2.11 ppmv) back in April 2004. However it’s not wise to focus on month to month variations. For example, March could have been lower than expected, which would make the jump seem larger than it should be. (It wasn’t.) This article explores some of what causes atmospheric CO2 to go up and down. It’s not the answer to everything, however I learnt a lot doing the research and I have some unanswered questions too (like a quantitative answer to the title of this article). (Let me know if you see any mistakes I may have made.)…
K 205: What these arrogant yahoos have never figured out is there is more than one way to do things, and those that wish to can always take up the work they so strenuously whine about others not doing. They truly do not care about accuracy, discovery, or anything else. they sit here on this blog bullying people who do meaningful analyses because, yup, they *can’t.*
BPL: Were you born this obnoxious, or did you have to study? You really think I CAN’T do meaningful analysis, so I’m “bullying” Mike? Mike, do you feel bullied?
Steve Fishsays
For those asking what happens with different CO2 reduction scenarios, look at these two articles here at RC:
mike: “Here is the bottom line: we need to see the level of CO2 and CO2e in the atmosphere come to a steady state as soon as possible. Then we have to live in a way that allows those numbers to stop dropping. That is the task. Does anyone want to argue about those assertions?”
Unfortunately it seems pretty clear that even with the elimination of all fossil fuel combustion within the shortest possible time, we won’t see a steady state within the lifetime of anyone alive today. This is because of the warming in the system already driving natural feedback processes that will inevitably lead to increased atmospheric CO2, such as permafrost melting, conversion of boreal forests to more scrub-like systems, expanded desertification in the sub-tropical zone, and release of carbon as methane/CO2 from shallow sea sediments especially in polar regions. These processes seem to be moving faster than the ocean’s natural uptake rate of CO2.
We also have continued effects to consider like ocean anoxia and acidification due to changes in circulation (nitrogen fertilization as well) and the CO2 uptake itself.
The only possible way to avert that is some kind of global CO2 uptake program, perhaps CO2 incorporated into building materials in some kind of artificial photosynthesis program, but that is not really on the horizon, even though technically plausible.
It’s not really a doomsday scenario, but I think we’re going to end up having to abandon large regions of global coastlines, leading to mass human migrations and associated violent conflicts exacerbated by agricultural failures; heat waves will make other regions unlivable (unless we go underground like termites); and to be realistic, CO2 emissions are still at record levels (49 Gt CO2 equivalents/yr) and shows no real signs of slowing down to say, 1970 levels (29 GT Co2 equivalents/yr).
This shouldn’t discourage people from getting off fossil fuels asap, but it does also point to a need for adaptive infrastructure programs to deal with the inevitable changes that are coming our way.
Barbarasays
Mike at 210 asks: “where is all this CO2 coming from? ”
How about all those vehicles emitting much more than the claimed amounts (Volkswagen, Peugeot etc)? Shipping also emits huge amounts which aren’t in the targets. If you’ve ever worked in an office, you’ll know about targets- how they’re massaged and manipulated. What reason do we have to believe that any figures are accurate -anywhere?
patricksays
BPL 168, 190: That’s very clear, very helpful.
Alfred Jones 209: > “CO2 absorption by natural systems is not dependent on emissions… [if] we could drop emissions to zero immediately…atmospheric concentrations would dip, but as temperatures continue to rise in various sinks…those sinks would become sources.” Thank you very much. You have the appreciates-complex-systems gene.
Scott Stroughsays
Killian @205,
Maybe what you say is true for some, but I don’t think you can make broad statements like that. Anecdotal at best. I am certain I have seen both sides of the phenomenon you describe, both the rejecting novel ideas out of hand, and the embracing of novel ideas…from the same group here….and basically the same ideas as well!
The difference in my opinion was I took a class in climate science so I could communicate my research better in the climate scientists’ language. My own field of agriculture uses slightly different terminology. Same basic idea. Slightly better developed hopefully. But huge difference in response than I received 2 years ago. Not all positive responses either, but at least thoughtful. None of what you describe at all once I learned to communicate it better in the language climate scientists use. Even forgiving trivial errors/typos I occasionally made.
So if you are going to paint with a broad brush anecdotal evidence, I can easily counter it with my own anecdotal experiences. I don’t see any reason why using a common terminology just to avoid unnecessary conflict is a bad thing at all. Believe me, there was a time I would have agreed with you 100%. No more.
This is pretty much what I suspected. I’ll leave it to the science and maths people to crunch the data but I always err on the side of things getting exponentially worse when it comes to Climate Change and humans. When the opposition party nominates D.T. and he supposedly represents 1/2 of the electorate I don’t know why anyone would expect a better result.
“Is the rate of rise at least slowing? Unfortunately, no. It’s speeding up.”
So if the rate of rise is SPEEDING UP, I would assume that the rate of acceleration will continue to increase over time, like the proverbial ‘snowball headed for hell’.
When I said I thought the Earth’s systems may be running the show, Tamino confirms that that will happen as we continue to warm, therefore I see no reason to think that it’s not already happening. Especially if emissions are supposedly ‘going down’, which I doubt.
I forget the name of the country singer who came home with his wife one night and found that their house was on fire. His wife asked, “what should we do?” He said, “pull the car in the garage.”
Keep it up Mike. You’re doing good!
Thomassays
206 Hank Roberts, sorry I did not word my question very well. I’ll have another go.
You say in – 186 Hank Roberts asks: “Is the rate of (CO2ppm) increase increasing?”
I listed a numebr of “figures” one coming from a paper you quoted, as well as co2earth which comes from MLO and a nasa source. Links were provided.
You may feel free to rely on whatever “reliable primary sources” you choose.
My revised question is:
“What is your answer to your own question Hank?”
Oh, you might even wish to note a specific time-scale when giving your ‘opinion’ as to what the ‘rate’ is doing up to now or at any point before now.
NOAA has also posted for May with the global anomaly +0.87ºC, a drop in anomaly on past months that is pretty much in line with GISTEMP. NOAA’s May 2016 has like GISTEMP fallen below the peak anomaly of the 2007 El Nino (+0.88ºC) and additionally has fallen below more of the monthly anomalies set in 2015. (NOAA gave a warmer 2015 than GISTEMP but a cooler set of anomalies through the peak of the El Nino.) So NOAA for May 2016 comes in =12th warmest on the record (GISTEMP was 8th). A comparison of recent anomalies with their 1997/98 equivalent below is given to the end of 1998 which may give some indication of where 2016 is heading following the ending of the El Nino.
……….1997/98 … 2015/16
Dec … +0.63ºC … +1.12ºC
Jan … +0.60ºC … +1.04ºC
Feb … +0.86ºC … +1.20ºC
Mar … +0.64ºC … +1.22ºC
Apr … +0.73ºC … +1.07ºC
May … +0.66ºC … +0.87ºC
Jun … +0.66ºC
Jul … +0.73ºC
Aug … +0.68ºC
Sep … +0.52ºC
Oct … +0.49ºC
Nov … +0.41ºC
Dec … +0.58ºC
“The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for May 2016 was the highest for May in the 137-year period of record, at 0.87°C (1.57°F) above the 20th century average of 14.8°C (58.6°F), besting the previous record set in 2015 by 0.02°C (0.04°F). May 2016 marks the 13th consecutive month a monthly global temperature record has been broken—the longest such streak since global temperature records began in 1880.”
That’s in line with data sets previously reporting–unsurprisingly. The El Nino continues to wane, but things are still pretty ‘scorchio.’
Piotrsays
Hank: “Piotr, what do you think “emissions fell” means?”
First, the statement about falling emissions wasn’t mine, but by Chuck Hughes (45), so I argue within _his_, not my assumptions – hence me saying things like:
– “if [sic] the emissions indeed [sic] fell”
as well as saying that the lack of deceleration of CO2 suggests to me:
” that either total emissions didn’t actually decrease [sic] and/or that “the other things are not equal” – that the sinks of CO2 are weaker now than in the past.”
So to answer your question: by my “if emissions indeed fell” I meant “if emissions indeed fell as suggested by Huck” and as supported by the 0.6% decrease in emissions in 2015 data.
Jon Kirwansays
Okay. Since I have been making commercial equipment designed to develop accurate and precise exponential decay constants from noisy phosphorescence data, and have had to write custom methods to deal with the noise (because traditional approaches taking the LN of the (S+N) data first and using a standard linear least square fit incorrectly weights each point the same but in a declining S situation with fixed N that isn’t correct), I thought I’d give a whirl to the CO2 data from MLO (longest dataset.) However…. it appears that they don’t provide anything newer than say last August 2015. I don’t mind noise and I don’t mind data that is not yet finalized. Cripes, the stuff I deal with routinely has a lot less going for it. What I’d like is access to at least through May 2016. And, if possible, I’d like daily averages, not monthly. I’d take the hourly raw flask measurements, if I could get it. Anyone know where recent data can be found together with data going back close to 1960 or so for MLO? With the same, or similar pacing? (I can use non-uniform time steps, too, I suppose.) Or is it restricted and delayed, as a matter of practice?
Piotrsays
Hank 207: “show a screenshot of the “bathtub model” illustrating the settings you’re putting in that give you a result that confuses you?”
The bathub model does not “confuse me”, I just didn’t find in it the proof you were saying was there. For this reason, I can’t show a screenshoot of something I didn’t find.
You, on the other hand, have to know to what you referred, so for you it should be easy to provide a link or screenshot proving your argument why a decreasing emissions _would not_ require slowing down of the rate of rise of atm. CO2.
After all, the onus of proof of our claims is on us, not on our reader.
“Certainly, this epitomizes our approach to this problem: Understand the processes of natural olivine carbonation, and then do as little as possible to accelerate these processes in order to consume globally significant quantities of CO2.” Hear, hear.
If the science of geology pursues geothermal and deep-geothermal science in this century with the kind of devotion it pursued petroleum until now–guess what. I’ve been impressed by the elegance of the idea of anthropogenic weathering analogues, but I didn’t want to say so, because it seemed so–fringe. Glad to find my impression had a future–and it’s not over.
Just to put the Fort Mac fire story to bed, the fire is largely contained is ‘being held’, and changing weather has reduced fire danger levels greatly.
The fire will probably not grow much more if at all, and as of June 17 was estimated to be at 589,552 hectares. Peak extent is listed as having reached 593,670 ha, which makes ‘the beast’ the 7th-largest wildfire in North American history.
Re: @210
From: Mike Here is the bottom line: we need to see the level of CO2 and CO2e in the atmosphere come to a steady state as soon as possible. Then we have to live in a way that allows those numbers to stop dropping. That is the task. Does anyone want to argue about those assertions?
The atmospheric CO2 levels typically reach a peak at MLO in their May averages. (I don’t find that to be a problem. I’m sure there are well worked out reasons for the exact timing.)
Since there was a lot of discussion about rising CO2, rising or falling rates of CO2, acceleration or the lack of it, and so on… I decided to go out and attempt a fit to the dataset from MLO to an exponential curve to see how it might look. The reason I wondered is in part because there is a continuing question about whether or not the rate of change (velocity) itself is increasing (accelerating.) I don’t think there is much doubt of that, myself. I think the velocity is increasing over time, not decreasing or staying constant. But I was curious.
And if it is increasing, is there a simplified exponential curve that fits reasonably well and what is it, roughly? This last question is just “curve fitting” and it’s NOT science. It’s just a way of coming up with something simple to estimate in the shorter term what may yet take place, without really attempting to understand anything about why (or what is actually going on.) Just the fact that one might fit somewhat well indicates that there is acceleration. And I think it does do that much.
A couple of notes, first. An exponential curve arrives whenever the rate of change of something is a simple constant times the amount of that something. So, if the number of births is a simple constant times the population and the number of deaths is a different but simple constant times the population, then a single net constant (briths minus deaths) times the population provides the rate of change in the population. And this will be an exponential curve. If one expects that the human population drives CO2 for a variety of reasons (clear cuttting, CO2 release, etc.), and if one expects that the CO2 sinks operate based on the atmospheric concentration of CO2, then one would tend (ignorant of exactly how oceans interact in complex ways to concentration and temperature and who knows what else, etc.) “expect” to see an exponential rise in CO2. I guess that was part of my motivation here. I was simply curious of the hypothesis was disproved by the data, or not.
I wasn’t able to get daily averages or their hourly flask readings (don’t know where to get them), but it was easy to gather up their monthly averages. I used all of the months in each year provided to help reduce the noise in the fitting process for an exponential curve. I’m sure I’m not the first to attempt this, but I decided to attempt to fit an exponential curve to these May annual peaks, but using all of the monthly data during the year to reduce noise and to better estimate the offset. So I did NOT reduce the data to just May averages. I used every month in the year to achieve annual averages. But I adjusted upward to pick off the May peak. I also grossly averaged the values, so as to avoid any idea that I’m showing precision that doesn’t exist in the data.
Finally, an exponential is of the form: B+A*EXP(T/Tau). B is the “baseline” and for CO2 will probably be somewhere in the “200’s” for ppmv. A and Tau calibrate the curve’s details. T, in this case, is measured in months since March 1958. (I had monthly data.) I decided to provide three different sets of B, A, and Tau, which provide a rough bracket around what seemed to me to fit reasonably well:
BaseLine, A, Tau
240 ppmv, 75 ppmv, 885 months
250 ppmv, 65 ppmv, 800 months
260 ppmv, 55 ppmv, 715 months
So, Mike, there’s a little fuel to your fire about CO2. If you use the last set and compute the figure for May 2016, you find: 260+55*exp(698/715), or approximately 406 ppmv. Which isn’t far from the actual reported figure of 407.7. (But the actual A was more like 712 and I reported a rounded 715 just to keep things simple and easy to remember.) The central point being here that an exponential does appear to fit pretty well and that this fact suggests a continuing acceleration exists. But also keep in mind that a “fit” is merely a way to pose a question and perhaps to suggest that an acceleration is not off the table, yet. It’s not going to tell you anything about what is really going on.
(I could post up the entire table of annual figures and computed figures, but that would be too much to ask, I think. Just use Excel and grab a copy of co2_mm_mlo.txt and do the plots.)
Thomassays
Giant Ice Age species such as elephant-sized sloths and powerful sabre-toothed cats suddenly died off around 12,300 years ago as a result of rapidly warming climate along with human activities in South America, a new study has found.
On the vexed topic of climate change and drought, there is a new paper out, but Smirnov et al. They use the SPEI metric to examine the roles of climate change and population increase/decrease to future exposure to extreme drought, and find, contrary to some previous work, that it is climate change that predominantly drives increasing exposure. For the RCP 8.5 scenario, exposure roughly quadruples by the end of the century.
It’s worth noting that SPEI changes are of both signs. Consistent with previous work, if you live in the boreal forest region (which relatively few people do), you should expect a *wetter* future.
Oleg Smirnov, Minghua Zhang, Tingyin Xiao, John Orbell, Amy Lobben, Josef Gordon. The relative importance of climate change and population growth for exposure to future extreme droughts. Climatic Change, 2016; DOI: 10.1007/s10584-016-1716-z
No, it wouldn’t. The red line on your graph looks like a moving average of the CO2 _concentrations_ at Mauna Loa, NOT the CO2 anthropogenic _emissions_. On what I mean by “if emissions indeed fell” – see my posts above.
Thanks to Killian at 205 for helping me understand that some folks I thought were on their game are just PG crazies. The bullying stuff makes more sense if I recognize that fact.
Tamino says the rate of increase is increasing. Let them with ears hear!
“The necessary solution is clear, and has been all along: slow, and eventually halt, the increase of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. We know their concentration is still increasing, but at what rate? Is the rate of rise at least slowing?
Unfortunately, no. It’s speeding up…
CO2 concentration was about 347.5 ppm (parts per million), but now it’s about 404.5 ppm. The 1986 value was already 25% higher than the pre-industrial level, today’s value is 45% higher.
It’s a bit of a surprise how well the increase matches a system where the rate of increase is rising steadily. That would imply that the concentration is a quadratic function of time…
If correct, that means that the rate at which CO2 is increasing has been steadily getting faster. A direct measure of the rate of increase (by a sophisticated method, but simple ways paint essentially the same picture) also suggests a steady increase in the rate at which CO2 is rising…
In 1960 CO2 was only going up by less than 1 ppm/year, but now it’s increasing by more than 2 ppm/year. And, alas, it shows no sign of slowing down — just going faster and faster.”
Are there any comments about Tamino’s Global Warning post from folks here who have not been able to look at raw numbers (decadal noaa numbers) I have provided? BPL, you get a pass on that, you have actually crunched numbers and offered analysis and your opinion instead of simply being stubborn and abusive.
I wish I was wrong about this stuff. The news is not good. Most indicators continuing to move in wrong direction. Survival and slowing of sixth great extinction event relies on our species making changes that move the important numbers in the right direction. The important numbers are the CO2 and CO2e ppm in the atmosphere.
Daily CO2
June 19, 2016: 406.94 ppm
June 19, 2015: 401.67 ppm (spikey day with 5.27 ppm increase over same day in 2015, but I am waiting to see the June average number and hoping it is around 407.0 or less)
May CO2
May 2016: 407.70 ppm
May 2015: 403.94 ppm
It would be nice to have a “killer app” to hush some commenters so that we could simply choose not to have to see quite as much of nutty stuff and the back and forth. Please RC programmers: get us set up with a “husher” app please?
Piotr, sorry, I should have included the text with the picture.
Red Curve: Fossil fuel trend of a fixed fraction (57%) of the cumulative industrial emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion and cement production.
Why 57 percent? Nature recycles some of it. So that red line is the emissions, less what’s biologically cycled, so it’s the emissions that stay in the atmosphere.
Seriously. That, along with the other links people have suggested, give you the information you’re looking for.
Again, just looking at a picture can confuse you. I should have linked the caption, and have done that in a followup.
Also, read the FAQ which explains that in more detail. Excerpt follows:
How do we know that the CO2 increase is caused by human activites?
Industry data provides detailed figures of fossil fuels used in various sectors. This data can be used to calculate the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere by combustion of the fuels….
carbon dioxide (CO2) is exchanged between the atmosphere, the ocean and the land through processes such as atmosphere-ocean gas transfer and chemical (e.g., weathering) and biological (e.g., photosynthesis) processes. While more than half of the CO2 emitted is currently removed from the atmosphere within a century, some fraction (about 20%) of emitted CO2 remains in the atmosphere for many millennia. Because of slow removal processes, atmospheric CO2 will continue to increase in the long term even if its emission is substantially reduced from present levels.
Read the whole page, not just the excerpt I quoted, for _why_.
When the CO2 level in the atmosphere changes, some of that goes into the oceans and the land.
When we quit pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere, the excess CO2 in the oceans and land will come right back into the atmosphere.
You can’t just track the level in the atmosphere as though it’s not connected to the rest of the planet.
Jon Kirwan @227 & @231.
If you are still seeking MLO CO2 data (& I’m not sure where you are sourcing it from so far), the monthly data from ESRL from 1958 up-to-date plus weekly from 1974 up-to-date is available here and their data finder here also provides hourly & daily data from 1974 to 2014.
AJ 212: AJ: A typical denialist technique is to state a teensy factoid and then use it to hammer a huge truth.
BPL: He still thinks I’m a denialist. AJ, crack a stats book, okay? You might start with “Statistics for Dummies” and “Statistics II for Dummies.”
Edward Greischsays
229 patrick: Thanks. Now I have understood trapping/reacting CO2 in rocks. Making CO2 react with basalt to make carbonates to sequester CO2 underground. As carbonate,it is really stuck there and won’t leak out. That they added H2S gas to the test is also good.
You referred to a chart from that paper but haven’t read the paper (you hit a paywall).
The chart is explained in the paper. Yes, emissions were slightly less for a couple of years.
When you hit a paywall, use Scholar and search for the DOI, then check where it says various versions of the paper are available.
Often one will be fully readable.
patricksays
Solar Impulse with Bertrand Piccard in the cockpit is 25 hours into Atlantic crossing right now, from New York to Seville. About two days left.
# 212 “What did you get on the SAT? I got an 800 math and 760 verbal (out of 800 each back then) So, compare our scores and then make an objective analysis of who’s Dunning-Kruger material.”
“From what I know about you, you’re driving while 90% of your windshield and 100% of your other windows and mirrors are completely blocked. Wash your car, dude.”
Comment by Alfred Jones
ACT? Drool mostly… But, I aced the Dunning-Kruger! I’m pretty sure I had the highest score there but I’d have to go back and look.
What’s your point?
I was referring more to your rudeness than your test scores. Tell you what, I’ll wash my car if you’ll lighten up a bit. How’s that?
Anyway, two guys just bought the old car wash so I’m pretty excited bout going; Matt Hanger and Bill Changer. It must be a franchise cause I see their names on every car wash.
June 20, 2016: 406.82 ppm
June 20, 2015: 402.27 ppm (another spikey day at 4.57 ppm increase over last year
May CO2
May 2016: 407.70 ppm
May 2015: 403.94 ppm
I think it’s clear we passed the annual CO2 peak and are headed down in the annual cycle now. The timing and the amount of dropoff in first month after peak is variable, but typical is drop of about .7 ppm in June from a peak in May. There are months in the record that show smaller or larger numbers, but .7 ppm is typical for June. So a typical June 2016 should be 407 after May 2016 of 407.7. We will see. I haven’t crunched daily numbers, but I think it feels like 407.2 range right now, but we could/should fall more for rest of June and hopefully hit the 407.0 or lower number as monthly average.
Tamino says: “In 1960 CO2 was only going up by less than 1 ppm/year, but now it’s increasing by more than 2 ppm/year. And, alas, it shows no sign of slowing down — just going faster and faster.” https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/global-warning/
I think Tamino is correct, but what do I know?
Thanks to JK at 231 for crunching numbers. I am re-reading and absorbing your work in that post.
CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere and related ocean acidification is the ballgame. Everything else is a distraction. Down is good. Up is bad. It keeps going up and it’s going up faster. We should do something about that if we can.
fwiw v2.0 ‘Demise of the Great Barrier Reef’ – 2016 Coral Bleaching Event
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY9p746teHE (16mins)
I updated the video to correct a few errors in the ‘live interview’ by including text screens for clarity. eg the 93% bleaching and 22% of dead coral was only across the northern third of the GBR, which is not made clear by the ‘journalist’.
Advice on errors and corrections are welcome.
186 Hank Roberts asks: “Is the rate of (CO2ppm) increase increasing?”
Professor Betts and colleagues forecast the rise this year to be a record
2016 3.15 +/- 0.53 parts per million.
2015 3.05
2014 2.17
2013 2.10
2012 2.61
2011 1.88
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/gr.html
2005 – 2014 2.11 ppm per year
1995 – 2004 1.87 ppm per year
1985 – 1994 1.42 ppm per year
1975 – 1984 1.44 ppm per year
1965 – 1974 1.06 ppm per year
1959 – 1964 (6 years only) 0.73 ppm per year
https://www.co2.earth/co2-acceleration
“The direction of atmospheric CO2 has been constant for decades. Year after year since 1958 when Charles David Keeling started measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, earth’s background CO2 level has only gone up. Overall, the increases have been accelerating.”
https://www.co2.earth/annual-co2
accelerate = increase in rate, amount, or extent.
What’s your opinion Hank?
sidd, I seem to remember reading somewhere that if emissions dropped to half, then atmospheric CO2 concentration would halt or even go down slightly but only for a few years before resuming a rise. I don’t recall if that decrease would need to happen abruptly or if it could happen slowly, with the same effect. Hopefully, someone here has a bit more knowledge on this.
And what does everyone think about the statement that “it costs 7 trillion dollars a year to save the world”? This idea was given a lot of noise during the COP21 negotiations and it made the public even more sceptical of climate change action. See more: https://whatitmeans.atavist.com/cop21-quick-summary-of-facts
Mike, pay the Peanut Gallery no mind. They’re a group that has posted here for years and have become institutionalized in their group bullying and rudeness.
Thees ees a sci-ahnce site, Siiir! Do PLEASE follow pro-to-col at *awl* times! We shant be patient with mal-contents! Cite yo-ur sources, Siiiir! Show yo-ur maths, in detail, cle-ah-ly penn’ed, and acc-u-rate or there *will* be reck-on-ings!
Meh.
Remember that write-up I did in August on EN, CO2 and ASI? I never make a serious guess at the ASI till July each year, the variability is that high due to weather dominating year-to-year variability. Accurately, too, I might add. This time, a year early. How many months of record lows so far? And, golly-gee, not a single regression, statistical analysis of years of data, etc., in it. Just a simple correlation I noticed long ago and finally got around to gathering a little data for. Proven? No. But I don’t care. I’m not a scientist. That’s not my job. I made an observation, I am in process of backing it up and supporting my hypothesis. We’ll see what the ASI decides to do. Either way, it’s up to Serreze, et al., to do something with it and figure out the scientific validity, or non-validity, of the correlation, and cause.
What these arrogant yahoos have never figured out is there is more than one way to do things, and those that wish to can always take up the work they so strenuously whine about others not doing. They truly do not care about accuracy, discovery, or anything else. they sit here on this blog bullying people who do meaningful analyses because, yup, they *can’t.* How do we know? In the years since 2007 (and possibly 2005) since I’ve posted here, I recall not one of them ever coming up with anything novel whatsoever. One or two have tried. And their accuracy is no better than chance.
The fact is, good science is highly dependent on inspiration, insight, creativity. It’s not just numbers like the PG would have us believe. To me the AS acting as it has this year was a no-braner. Records? We’ll see. but the EN has absolutely had an effect. Again, proven? No, but find me a serious climate scientist who would claim otherwise.
Do your work. Ignore them. They’re just jealous they’ve got all their maths and can’tdo a darned thing with them but pick at others’ work.
Seriously, take what support you can and enjoy the rarity of it. The Peanut Gallery exists, much like superdelegates, to quash creativity.
They’re not any good at that, either. ;-)
As for CO2, I suspect the seasonality of the CO2 cycle is being affected like that of the ASI has been. Totally weird to get the highest dailies before May. That we had four consecutive days over 409 and then another little bout over 409 tells me we *may* be seeing a new pattern. Of curse, with EN, maybe that was the cause of the anomaly. If the average comes in at under 4.0 higher, just be glad. it may mean the annual rises ARE slowing.
Cheers
Mike, you again point to “CO2Earth” — but what’s their basis for the statement you quote?
This is the problem with quoting second-hand sources that don’t cite the basis for their statements.
You don’t know if they’re just eyeballing the curve, or if someone has done the arithmetic.
Saying “people say that X” isn’t a respectable basis for making a claim like this.
Whether you’re saying something you want to believe, or don’t want to believe.
Reality is plenty scary enough.
Yes, eventually, I think no one will be surprised to find out things are getting worse. Keep predicting anything bad related to climate change, and eventually, the expectation will turn out to be correct, almost certainly.
Oh, that’s Thomas pointing to CO2Earth this time, not Mike.
Same point though.
Piotr, what do you think “emissions fell” means?
Can you put numbers on that statement?
Emissions = X, and then “emissions fell” so after that emissions = X minus how much?
Or show a screenshot of the “bathtub model” illustrating the settings you’re putting in that give you a result that confuses you?
PS for Piotr — can you at least find a source showing what you mean by “emissions fell”?
That would be the red line on this chart, for example, if it showed a decrease:
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/sites/default/files/graphics_gallery_images/mlo_ff.png
Or — maybe you’re suggesting a hypothetical, not saying it’s actually happening?
Is that what you mean? If so that’s a whole different question, and as Tony W. says there are sources for that. This may help, though the full text is paywalled:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-006-9107-5#/page-1
Tony W,
CO2 absorption by natural systems is NOT dependent on emissions at all. Instead, it is based primarily on the lag (difference) between atmospheric concentration and ocean concentration, which is fairly simple, as well as the far more complicated interactions between CO2 concentration + nitrogen + water + other stuff and plant growth and CO2 concentration + temperature on the breaking down of dead stuff. It just so happens that currently about half of our emissions are absorbed. This ratio is COMPLETELY NON-SCIENTIFIC. Instead, it’s just a coincidence.
So, if we reduce emissions by whatever amount is currently not being absorbed, then two things would happen. First, atmospheric concentration would flatline for ONE year, and second, CO2 sinks would continue to fill with (essentially) no change in the rate. Thus, some of the lag would be “eaten up” and next year less CO2 would be absorbed. Thus, to maintain our constant atmospheric concentration, we’d have to emit less CO2 next year than we did this year.
We’d have to continue to decrease our emissions steadily year after year as the sinks catch up with the atmosphere, until, eventually, we hit zero emissions.
You asked about reducing slowly to 50%. Well, during that time atmospheric concentrations will increase, so the baseline will have shifted, and we’re talking apples and oranges. At 500ppm the difference between concentrations and equilibrium will be larger, so the absorption rate (at least for the ocean) will increase, changing the calculations, and really, even the question.
This is all based on the hypothesis that nature will play nice. It’s quite possible that we could drop emissions to zero immediately and atmospheric concentrations would dip, but as temperatures continue to rise in various sinks (it can take 1000 years(?) or so for permafrost and oceans to reach equilibrium), those sinks will become sources. Remember, only a tiny orbital nudge sends the Earth screaming from ice age to interglacial and back, and NOT all at once. Instead, it was an albedo nudge leads to a tiny temp increase leads to a tiny CO2 increase leads to a tiny temp increase leads to….
Remember, all that buried carbon we dug up is “in addition” to natural systems. So how do you fit “huge artificial CO2 injection” into the above series. especially with the “tiny orbital nudge” currently towards cooling? I seriously doubt anybody has a firm grasp on either future CO2 concentrations or temperature that would result from anthropogenic actions. Nature is big and lifeforms reproduce rapidly. Like James Hansen’s ice sheet melt doubling hypothesis, doubling of bacterial and insect activity repeatedly quite quickly mucks up our calculations. The Amazon and the boreal forests could both crumble extremely quickly. Would what replaces them increase or decrease CO2? (after the initial spike resulting from decay of the dead)
This is something we’ll have to experience to get even remotely close to an answer. As if we know how many of that huge flock of swans swirling overhead will land – or even whether they’re black or white. (Amazon to savanna might be beneficial CO2-wise after the spike, for example)
No daily numbers from CO2.earth for June 14, so here is the most recent weekly number:
Daily CO2
June 15, 2016: 407.31 ppm
June 15, 2015: 402.21 ppm (weekly average a wopping 5 plus ppm over same week a year ago)
May CO2
May 2016: 407.70 ppm
May 2015: 403.94 ppm
Once we get past the consumptive argument about the increase, we might get to the important questions: where is all this CO2 coming from? Are we seeing significant pulses of CO2 from the “natural” sources, like reduced ocean uptake, release from drying/warming peat and permafrost etc.
The link between our emissions (if we have an accurate read on that) and the level of CO2 in atmosphere is mediated by a lot of natural processes, so trying to review falling emission reports and then link them to a corresponding flattening of the level of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is a fools errand. In the end, none of that matters as much as the absolute level of CO2 and CO2e in the atmosphere. As that goes up from any source, heat rise will follow and we are testing the limit of the heat that the planet can have and still sustain the kind of environment that most living things need.
Here is the bottom line: we need to see the level of CO2 and CO2e in the atmosphere come to a steady state as soon as possible. Then we have to live in a way that allows those numbers to stop dropping. That is the task. Does anyone want to argue about those assertions?
turning off the computer now to head for the hills, will check back in next week with update on raw numbers. Read’m and weep.
Warm regards,
Mike
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2016/05/23/why-has-a-drop-in-global-co2-emissions-not-caused-co2-levels-in-the-atmosphere-to-stabilize/ makes an attempt (and a commenter notes that you’d need a model accounting for El Nino to see a change, you won’t see it in something like the Mauna Loa measure right away, it takes years to appear out of the background variation)
The comments include the well known Girma, so read critically if at all.
Chuck H: Do you go by Al or Fred? I’ve been reading your diatribes and broadsides with interest. Waiting for you to say something of substance so I can respond.
AJ: Neither. I’ve never put what I go by on the internet. It would add nothing except risk.
It is hard to respond to that which you don’t understand. Perhaps you’d do better by asking questions? I’d be happy to try to teach you a bit, but I’m not confident in your ability to understand. What did you get on the SAT? I got an 800 math and 760 verbal (out of 800 each back then) So, compare our scores and then make an objective analysis of who’s Dunning-Kruger material.
You say you find my writing interesting. Thank you. Most folks I’ve met gives me the same compliments: I make them think and I come up with ideas and solutions that both make sense and that they’ve never heard of before. Put me in a room with experts on a subject I’m only vaguely familiar with and the same thing always happens. I’ll ask some ignorant questions and then get them past whatever has them stuck.
However, less open folks often just shut down. They retreat to their axioms, which are usually just blind spots. From what I know about you, you’re driving while 90% of your windshield and 100% of your other windows and mirrors are completely blocked. Wash your car, dude.
——–
BPL: The rate IS accelerating, but your numbers do nothing to prove that. You need the percentage increase year over year, not the increase in ppmv.
AJ: A typical denialist technique is to state a teensy factoid and then use it to hammer a huge truth. 401/400 = 1.0025. 402/401 = 1.002493765. 1.0025/1.002493765 = 1.000006. Thus Mike’s stance is correct to way beyond the significant digits used by either of you. Please learn how logarithms interact with significant digits before attacking somebody next time. Otherwise, you’ll have to remove “trend” from your vocabulary. Technically, there is no such thing as a linear trend. It’s a curve which approximates linear over a small section. Trends break down once the underlying curve becomes larger than the significant digits being used. Until then, whining about logarithms is just denialistesque tripe.
And here ya go:
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/global-warning/#comment-95400
Dang. I hate when the pessimistic eyeballs do get support for bad news from the statistics.
The El Nino bump will be over in a year or so, if it goes away.
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2016/06/how-much-can-el-nino-be-blamed-for-jump.html
Work in progress. Go there to comment on that.
K 205: What these arrogant yahoos have never figured out is there is more than one way to do things, and those that wish to can always take up the work they so strenuously whine about others not doing. They truly do not care about accuracy, discovery, or anything else. they sit here on this blog bullying people who do meaningful analyses because, yup, they *can’t.*
BPL: Were you born this obnoxious, or did you have to study? You really think I CAN’T do meaningful analysis, so I’m “bullying” Mike? Mike, do you feel bullied?
For those asking what happens with different CO2 reduction scenarios, look at these two articles here at RC:
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/03/climate-change-commitments/
https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/06/climate-change-commitment-ii/
Steve
mike: “Here is the bottom line: we need to see the level of CO2 and CO2e in the atmosphere come to a steady state as soon as possible. Then we have to live in a way that allows those numbers to stop dropping. That is the task. Does anyone want to argue about those assertions?”
Unfortunately it seems pretty clear that even with the elimination of all fossil fuel combustion within the shortest possible time, we won’t see a steady state within the lifetime of anyone alive today. This is because of the warming in the system already driving natural feedback processes that will inevitably lead to increased atmospheric CO2, such as permafrost melting, conversion of boreal forests to more scrub-like systems, expanded desertification in the sub-tropical zone, and release of carbon as methane/CO2 from shallow sea sediments especially in polar regions. These processes seem to be moving faster than the ocean’s natural uptake rate of CO2.
We also have continued effects to consider like ocean anoxia and acidification due to changes in circulation (nitrogen fertilization as well) and the CO2 uptake itself.
The only possible way to avert that is some kind of global CO2 uptake program, perhaps CO2 incorporated into building materials in some kind of artificial photosynthesis program, but that is not really on the horizon, even though technically plausible.
It’s not really a doomsday scenario, but I think we’re going to end up having to abandon large regions of global coastlines, leading to mass human migrations and associated violent conflicts exacerbated by agricultural failures; heat waves will make other regions unlivable (unless we go underground like termites); and to be realistic, CO2 emissions are still at record levels (49 Gt CO2 equivalents/yr) and shows no real signs of slowing down to say, 1970 levels (29 GT Co2 equivalents/yr).
http://ar5-syr.ipcc.ch/topic_summary.php
This shouldn’t discourage people from getting off fossil fuels asap, but it does also point to a need for adaptive infrastructure programs to deal with the inevitable changes that are coming our way.
Mike at 210 asks: “where is all this CO2 coming from? ”
How about all those vehicles emitting much more than the claimed amounts (Volkswagen, Peugeot etc)? Shipping also emits huge amounts which aren’t in the targets. If you’ve ever worked in an office, you’ll know about targets- how they’re massaged and manipulated. What reason do we have to believe that any figures are accurate -anywhere?
BPL 168, 190: That’s very clear, very helpful.
Alfred Jones 209: > “CO2 absorption by natural systems is not dependent on emissions… [if] we could drop emissions to zero immediately…atmospheric concentrations would dip, but as temperatures continue to rise in various sinks…those sinks would become sources.” Thank you very much. You have the appreciates-complex-systems gene.
Killian @205,
Maybe what you say is true for some, but I don’t think you can make broad statements like that. Anecdotal at best. I am certain I have seen both sides of the phenomenon you describe, both the rejecting novel ideas out of hand, and the embracing of novel ideas…from the same group here….and basically the same ideas as well!
The difference in my opinion was I took a class in climate science so I could communicate my research better in the climate scientists’ language. My own field of agriculture uses slightly different terminology. Same basic idea. Slightly better developed hopefully. But huge difference in response than I received 2 years ago. Not all positive responses either, but at least thoughtful. None of what you describe at all once I learned to communicate it better in the language climate scientists use. Even forgiving trivial errors/typos I occasionally made.
So if you are going to paint with a broad brush anecdotal evidence, I can easily counter it with my own anecdotal experiences. I don’t see any reason why using a common terminology just to avoid unnecessary conflict is a bad thing at all. Believe me, there was a time I would have agreed with you 100%. No more.
Bishop Hill’s Kindergarten Climateers are at it again
This is pretty much what I suspected. I’ll leave it to the science and maths people to crunch the data but I always err on the side of things getting exponentially worse when it comes to Climate Change and humans. When the opposition party nominates D.T. and he supposedly represents 1/2 of the electorate I don’t know why anyone would expect a better result.
“Is the rate of rise at least slowing? Unfortunately, no. It’s speeding up.”
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/global-warning/
So if the rate of rise is SPEEDING UP, I would assume that the rate of acceleration will continue to increase over time, like the proverbial ‘snowball headed for hell’.
When I said I thought the Earth’s systems may be running the show, Tamino confirms that that will happen as we continue to warm, therefore I see no reason to think that it’s not already happening. Especially if emissions are supposedly ‘going down’, which I doubt.
I forget the name of the country singer who came home with his wife one night and found that their house was on fire. His wife asked, “what should we do?” He said, “pull the car in the garage.”
Keep it up Mike. You’re doing good!
206 Hank Roberts, sorry I did not word my question very well. I’ll have another go.
You say in – 186 Hank Roberts asks: “Is the rate of (CO2ppm) increase increasing?”
I listed a numebr of “figures” one coming from a paper you quoted, as well as co2earth which comes from MLO and a nasa source. Links were provided.
You may feel free to rely on whatever “reliable primary sources” you choose.
My revised question is:
“What is your answer to your own question Hank?”
Oh, you might even wish to note a specific time-scale when giving your ‘opinion’ as to what the ‘rate’ is doing up to now or at any point before now.
NOAA has also posted for May with the global anomaly +0.87ºC, a drop in anomaly on past months that is pretty much in line with GISTEMP. NOAA’s May 2016 has like GISTEMP fallen below the peak anomaly of the 2007 El Nino (+0.88ºC) and additionally has fallen below more of the monthly anomalies set in 2015. (NOAA gave a warmer 2015 than GISTEMP but a cooler set of anomalies through the peak of the El Nino.) So NOAA for May 2016 comes in =12th warmest on the record (GISTEMP was 8th). A comparison of recent anomalies with their 1997/98 equivalent below is given to the end of 1998 which may give some indication of where 2016 is heading following the ending of the El Nino.
……….1997/98 … 2015/16
Dec … +0.63ºC … +1.12ºC
Jan … +0.60ºC … +1.04ºC
Feb … +0.86ºC … +1.20ºC
Mar … +0.64ºC … +1.22ºC
Apr … +0.73ºC … +1.07ºC
May … +0.66ºC … +0.87ºC
Jun … +0.66ºC
Jul … +0.73ºC
Aug … +0.68ºC
Sep … +0.52ºC
Oct … +0.49ºC
Nov … +0.41ºC
Dec … +0.58ºC
Ha! The May update from NCDC (NCEI) is out.
“The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for May 2016 was the highest for May in the 137-year period of record, at 0.87°C (1.57°F) above the 20th century average of 14.8°C (58.6°F), besting the previous record set in 2015 by 0.02°C (0.04°F). May 2016 marks the 13th consecutive month a monthly global temperature record has been broken—the longest such streak since global temperature records began in 1880.”
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201605
That’s in line with data sets previously reporting–unsurprisingly. The El Nino continues to wane, but things are still pretty ‘scorchio.’
Hank: “Piotr, what do you think “emissions fell” means?”
First, the statement about falling emissions wasn’t mine, but by Chuck Hughes (45), so I argue within _his_, not my assumptions – hence me saying things like:
– “if [sic] the emissions indeed [sic] fell”
as well as saying that the lack of deceleration of CO2 suggests to me:
” that either total emissions didn’t actually decrease [sic] and/or that “the other things are not equal” – that the sinks of CO2 are weaker now than in the past.”
Second, I am not sure on what Chuck based his statements, but one possible source could be
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2892.html
It is behind a paywall, but here is a graph http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/carousel/nclimate2892-f1.jpg
So to answer your question: by my “if emissions indeed fell” I meant “if emissions indeed fell as suggested by Huck” and as supported by the 0.6% decrease in emissions in 2015 data.
Okay. Since I have been making commercial equipment designed to develop accurate and precise exponential decay constants from noisy phosphorescence data, and have had to write custom methods to deal with the noise (because traditional approaches taking the LN of the (S+N) data first and using a standard linear least square fit incorrectly weights each point the same but in a declining S situation with fixed N that isn’t correct), I thought I’d give a whirl to the CO2 data from MLO (longest dataset.) However…. it appears that they don’t provide anything newer than say last August 2015. I don’t mind noise and I don’t mind data that is not yet finalized. Cripes, the stuff I deal with routinely has a lot less going for it. What I’d like is access to at least through May 2016. And, if possible, I’d like daily averages, not monthly. I’d take the hourly raw flask measurements, if I could get it. Anyone know where recent data can be found together with data going back close to 1960 or so for MLO? With the same, or similar pacing? (I can use non-uniform time steps, too, I suppose.) Or is it restricted and delayed, as a matter of practice?
Hank 207: “show a screenshot of the “bathtub model” illustrating the settings you’re putting in that give you a result that confuses you?”
The bathub model does not “confuse me”, I just didn’t find in it the proof you were saying was there. For this reason, I can’t show a screenshoot of something I didn’t find.
You, on the other hand, have to know to what you referred, so for you it should be easy to provide a link or screenshot proving your argument why a decreasing emissions _would not_ require slowing down of the rate of rise of atm. CO2.
After all, the onus of proof of our claims is on us, not on our reader.
“Science” says: “Inject, baby, inject” (sic). Weather, baby, weather, I say.
Carbfix Project homepage, with paper in “Science” (10 June 2016) on the Iceland break (a cognitive break, hopefully, I mean):
https://www.or.is/english/carbfix-project
“The Conversation” article:
https://theconversation.com/new-technology-offers-hope-for-storing-carbon-dioxide-underground-60707
Earth Institute State of the Planet news (16 June 2016): presentation on Carbfix Project will be streamed 24 June and archived:
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2016/06/16/watch-live-turning-co2-to-stone-scientists-discuss-a-climate-solution/?platform=hootsuite
Video: http://barnard.edu/news/prof-martin-stute-develops-new-method-combat-global-warming
Peter Keleman and group, Earth Institute (previously):
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/gpg/projects/carbon-sequestration
“Certainly, this epitomizes our approach to this problem: Understand the processes of natural olivine carbonation, and then do as little as possible to accelerate these processes in order to consume globally significant quantities of CO2.” Hear, hear.
If the science of geology pursues geothermal and deep-geothermal science in this century with the kind of devotion it pursued petroleum until now–guess what. I’ve been impressed by the elegance of the idea of anthropogenic weathering analogues, but I didn’t want to say so, because it seemed so–fringe. Glad to find my impression had a future–and it’s not over.
Just to put the Fort Mac fire story to bed, the fire is largely contained is ‘being held’, and changing weather has reduced fire danger levels greatly.
The fire will probably not grow much more if at all, and as of June 17 was estimated to be at 589,552 hectares. Peak extent is listed as having reached 593,670 ha, which makes ‘the beast’ the 7th-largest wildfire in North American history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wildfires#Canada_and_the_United_States
The atmospheric CO2 levels typically reach a peak at MLO in their May averages. (I don’t find that to be a problem. I’m sure there are well worked out reasons for the exact timing.)
Since there was a lot of discussion about rising CO2, rising or falling rates of CO2, acceleration or the lack of it, and so on… I decided to go out and attempt a fit to the dataset from MLO to an exponential curve to see how it might look. The reason I wondered is in part because there is a continuing question about whether or not the rate of change (velocity) itself is increasing (accelerating.) I don’t think there is much doubt of that, myself. I think the velocity is increasing over time, not decreasing or staying constant. But I was curious.
And if it is increasing, is there a simplified exponential curve that fits reasonably well and what is it, roughly? This last question is just “curve fitting” and it’s NOT science. It’s just a way of coming up with something simple to estimate in the shorter term what may yet take place, without really attempting to understand anything about why (or what is actually going on.) Just the fact that one might fit somewhat well indicates that there is acceleration. And I think it does do that much.
A couple of notes, first. An exponential curve arrives whenever the rate of change of something is a simple constant times the amount of that something. So, if the number of births is a simple constant times the population and the number of deaths is a different but simple constant times the population, then a single net constant (briths minus deaths) times the population provides the rate of change in the population. And this will be an exponential curve. If one expects that the human population drives CO2 for a variety of reasons (clear cuttting, CO2 release, etc.), and if one expects that the CO2 sinks operate based on the atmospheric concentration of CO2, then one would tend (ignorant of exactly how oceans interact in complex ways to concentration and temperature and who knows what else, etc.) “expect” to see an exponential rise in CO2. I guess that was part of my motivation here. I was simply curious of the hypothesis was disproved by the data, or not.
I wasn’t able to get daily averages or their hourly flask readings (don’t know where to get them), but it was easy to gather up their monthly averages. I used all of the months in each year provided to help reduce the noise in the fitting process for an exponential curve. I’m sure I’m not the first to attempt this, but I decided to attempt to fit an exponential curve to these May annual peaks, but using all of the monthly data during the year to reduce noise and to better estimate the offset. So I did NOT reduce the data to just May averages. I used every month in the year to achieve annual averages. But I adjusted upward to pick off the May peak. I also grossly averaged the values, so as to avoid any idea that I’m showing precision that doesn’t exist in the data.
Finally, an exponential is of the form: B+A*EXP(T/Tau). B is the “baseline” and for CO2 will probably be somewhere in the “200’s” for ppmv. A and Tau calibrate the curve’s details. T, in this case, is measured in months since March 1958. (I had monthly data.) I decided to provide three different sets of B, A, and Tau, which provide a rough bracket around what seemed to me to fit reasonably well:
BaseLine, A, Tau
240 ppmv, 75 ppmv, 885 months
250 ppmv, 65 ppmv, 800 months
260 ppmv, 55 ppmv, 715 months
So, Mike, there’s a little fuel to your fire about CO2. If you use the last set and compute the figure for May 2016, you find: 260+55*exp(698/715), or approximately 406 ppmv. Which isn’t far from the actual reported figure of 407.7. (But the actual A was more like 712 and I reported a rounded 715 just to keep things simple and easy to remember.) The central point being here that an exponential does appear to fit pretty well and that this fact suggests a continuing acceleration exists. But also keep in mind that a “fit” is merely a way to pose a question and perhaps to suggest that an acceleration is not off the table, yet. It’s not going to tell you anything about what is really going on.
(I could post up the entire table of annual figures and computed figures, but that would be too much to ask, I think. Just use Excel and grab a copy of co2_mm_mlo.txt and do the plots.)
Giant Ice Age species such as elephant-sized sloths and powerful sabre-toothed cats suddenly died off around 12,300 years ago as a result of rapidly warming climate along with human activities in South America, a new study has found.
http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/humans-climate-change-together-felled-ice-age-giants-116061900215_1.html
On the vexed topic of climate change and drought, there is a new paper out, but Smirnov et al. They use the SPEI metric to examine the roles of climate change and population increase/decrease to future exposure to extreme drought, and find, contrary to some previous work, that it is climate change that predominantly drives increasing exposure. For the RCP 8.5 scenario, exposure roughly quadruples by the end of the century.
It’s worth noting that SPEI changes are of both signs. Consistent with previous work, if you live in the boreal forest region (which relatively few people do), you should expect a *wetter* future.
Release:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/06/160613165159.htm
Article link:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-016-1716-z
Citation:
Oleg Smirnov, Minghua Zhang, Tingyin Xiao, John Orbell, Amy Lobben, Josef Gordon. The relative importance of climate change and population growth for exposure to future extreme droughts. Climatic Change, 2016; DOI: 10.1007/s10584-016-1716-z
http://epic.gsfc.nasa.gov/epic-archive/jpg/epic_1b_20160616234036_01.jpg
North Pole, full sunlight (coming up to the summer solstice)
Bishop Hill’s jester Josh has added children’s books to his motley repertoire.
<a href="http://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2016/06/turboriddler-rightway-toll-snogger-was.html" A sequel somehow seems in order.
Hank 208: “PS for Piotr — can you at least find a source showing what you mean by “emissions fell”?
That would be the red line on this chart, for example, if it showed a decrease:
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/sites/default/files/graphics_gallery_images/mlo_ff.png”
No, it wouldn’t. The red line on your graph looks like a moving average of the CO2 _concentrations_ at Mauna Loa, NOT the CO2 anthropogenic _emissions_. On what I mean by “if emissions indeed fell” – see my posts above.
Where were you in 1967?
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/155/3767/1203
The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis
Lynn White, Jr.
A conversation with Aldous Huxley
_____________________________
Hat tip — this is a recommendation from Annie Proulx, heard today on KQED Forum
http://ww2.kqed.org/forum/2016/06/19/three-hundred-years-two-families-and-one-forest-annie-proulx-discusses-her-new-novel-barkskins/
(audio will be available in a day or so, as usual there)
She has a good bit to say, on air, about climate change and the need to educate people.
Thanks to Killian at 205 for helping me understand that some folks I thought were on their game are just PG crazies. The bullying stuff makes more sense if I recognize that fact.
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/global-warning/#more-8625
Tamino says the rate of increase is increasing. Let them with ears hear!
“The necessary solution is clear, and has been all along: slow, and eventually halt, the increase of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. We know their concentration is still increasing, but at what rate? Is the rate of rise at least slowing?
Unfortunately, no. It’s speeding up…
CO2 concentration was about 347.5 ppm (parts per million), but now it’s about 404.5 ppm. The 1986 value was already 25% higher than the pre-industrial level, today’s value is 45% higher.
It’s a bit of a surprise how well the increase matches a system where the rate of increase is rising steadily. That would imply that the concentration is a quadratic function of time…
If correct, that means that the rate at which CO2 is increasing has been steadily getting faster. A direct measure of the rate of increase (by a sophisticated method, but simple ways paint essentially the same picture) also suggests a steady increase in the rate at which CO2 is rising…
In 1960 CO2 was only going up by less than 1 ppm/year, but now it’s increasing by more than 2 ppm/year. And, alas, it shows no sign of slowing down — just going faster and faster.”
Are there any comments about Tamino’s Global Warning post from folks here who have not been able to look at raw numbers (decadal noaa numbers) I have provided? BPL, you get a pass on that, you have actually crunched numbers and offered analysis and your opinion instead of simply being stubborn and abusive.
I wish I was wrong about this stuff. The news is not good. Most indicators continuing to move in wrong direction. Survival and slowing of sixth great extinction event relies on our species making changes that move the important numbers in the right direction. The important numbers are the CO2 and CO2e ppm in the atmosphere.
Daily CO2
June 19, 2016: 406.94 ppm
June 19, 2015: 401.67 ppm (spikey day with 5.27 ppm increase over same day in 2015, but I am waiting to see the June average number and hoping it is around 407.0 or less)
May CO2
May 2016: 407.70 ppm
May 2015: 403.94 ppm
It would be nice to have a “killer app” to hush some commenters so that we could simply choose not to have to see quite as much of nutty stuff and the back and forth. Please RC programmers: get us set up with a “husher” app please?
Warm regards all,
Mike
Piotr, sorry, I should have included the text with the picture.
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_gallery/mauna_loa_record/mauna_loa_fossil_fuel_trend
Why 57 percent? Nature recycles some of it. So that red line is the emissions, less what’s biologically cycled, so it’s the emissions that stay in the atmosphere.
Seriously. That, along with the other links people have suggested, give you the information you’re looking for.
Want more? You can quote that string and search and find multiple sources of the information:
https://www.google.com/search?q=+cumulative+industrial+emissions+of+CO2+from+fossil+fuel+combustion+and+cement+production
> Piotr … The red line on your graph looks like …
Again, just looking at a picture can confuse you. I should have linked the caption, and have done that in a followup.
Also, read the FAQ which explains that in more detail. Excerpt follows:
more for Piotr:
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/pd/climate/factsheets/ifemmision.pdf
Read the whole page, not just the excerpt I quoted, for _why_.
When the CO2 level in the atmosphere changes, some of that goes into the oceans and the land.
When we quit pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere, the excess CO2 in the oceans and land will come right back into the atmosphere.
You can’t just track the level in the atmosphere as though it’s not connected to the rest of the planet.
Jon Kirwan @227 & @231.
If you are still seeking MLO CO2 data (& I’m not sure where you are sourcing it from so far), the monthly data from ESRL from 1958 up-to-date plus weekly from 1974 up-to-date is available here and their data finder here also provides hourly & daily data from 1974 to 2014.
The Denialosphere Down Under has turned to crowdfunding a , wait for it, Global Cooling Hedge Fund ?
AJ 212: AJ: A typical denialist technique is to state a teensy factoid and then use it to hammer a huge truth.
BPL: He still thinks I’m a denialist. AJ, crack a stats book, okay? You might start with “Statistics for Dummies” and “Statistics II for Dummies.”
229 patrick: Thanks. Now I have understood trapping/reacting CO2 in rocks. Making CO2 react with basalt to make carbonates to sequester CO2 underground. As carbonate,it is really stuck there and won’t leak out. That they added H2S gas to the test is also good.
Russell’s fixed link: http://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2016/06/turboriddler-rightway-toll-snogger-was.html
which contains a link to his nicely accurate if slightly over the top snark about the scam from JoNova and David Evans:
http://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-northern-rock-of-caymans-icecap.html
Thanks Russell, I was feeling a little frustrated about some overly polite treatment of the latter.
For Piotr: https://earth.stanford.edu/jacksonlab/sites/default/files/nclimate2892.pdf
You referred to a chart from that paper but haven’t read the paper (you hit a paywall).
The chart is explained in the paper. Yes, emissions were slightly less for a couple of years.
When you hit a paywall, use Scholar and search for the DOI, then check where it says various versions of the paper are available.
Often one will be fully readable.
Solar Impulse with Bertrand Piccard in the cockpit is 25 hours into Atlantic crossing right now, from New York to Seville. About two days left.
Livestream: http://www.solarimpulse.com/sitv
Livestream with logbook and virtual cockpit, etc
http://www.solarimpulse.com/leg-15-from-New_York-to-Seville
# 212 “What did you get on the SAT? I got an 800 math and 760 verbal (out of 800 each back then) So, compare our scores and then make an objective analysis of who’s Dunning-Kruger material.”
“From what I know about you, you’re driving while 90% of your windshield and 100% of your other windows and mirrors are completely blocked. Wash your car, dude.”
Comment by Alfred Jones
ACT? Drool mostly… But, I aced the Dunning-Kruger! I’m pretty sure I had the highest score there but I’d have to go back and look.
What’s your point?
I was referring more to your rudeness than your test scores. Tell you what, I’ll wash my car if you’ll lighten up a bit. How’s that?
Anyway, two guys just bought the old car wash so I’m pretty excited bout going; Matt Hanger and Bill Changer. It must be a franchise cause I see their names on every car wash.
Daily CO2
June 20, 2016: 406.82 ppm
June 20, 2015: 402.27 ppm (another spikey day at 4.57 ppm increase over last year
May CO2
May 2016: 407.70 ppm
May 2015: 403.94 ppm
I think it’s clear we passed the annual CO2 peak and are headed down in the annual cycle now. The timing and the amount of dropoff in first month after peak is variable, but typical is drop of about .7 ppm in June from a peak in May. There are months in the record that show smaller or larger numbers, but .7 ppm is typical for June. So a typical June 2016 should be 407 after May 2016 of 407.7. We will see. I haven’t crunched daily numbers, but I think it feels like 407.2 range right now, but we could/should fall more for rest of June and hopefully hit the 407.0 or lower number as monthly average.
The NOAA monthly average numbers are here: https://www.co2.earth/monthly-co2
Tamino says: “In 1960 CO2 was only going up by less than 1 ppm/year, but now it’s increasing by more than 2 ppm/year. And, alas, it shows no sign of slowing down — just going faster and faster.” https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/global-warning/
I think Tamino is correct, but what do I know?
Thanks to JK at 231 for crunching numbers. I am re-reading and absorbing your work in that post.
CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere and related ocean acidification is the ballgame. Everything else is a distraction. Down is good. Up is bad. It keeps going up and it’s going up faster. We should do something about that if we can.
Warm regards,
Mike