I remember being in a bar in Chang Mai, yep, one of those stories. The bar owner is a friend of a friend. I had a plesant conversation with a couple of british expats there, but when they left the bar owner explained what they really did for a living. They pay a cambodian general to "protect" their crew, as they bought old teak houses, and smuggled the wood into Thailand, then from their Europe. There are teak nurseries in cambodia now, but the old growth is worth more. I've over the years seen malasia cut down old growth and build golf courses and profitable tree farms (rubber and palm). At least Cambodia and Malaysia still have some old forests, europe destroyed their fostets a long time ago but seem the most preachy on the subject. Really sad, but probably not much to do with ghg, except the schemes to pretend these tree farms should be subsidized. California's ab32 does just that idocy. If you clear cut an old growth forest and put up a tree farm, the state will give you credits that you can sell to utilities or refineries.
<green>with envy!</green> Wish I'd posted it first! <GRINS> This is the part that interests me: The importance of this graph are the the crossing points. The slope of these points should be the true metric of global CO{2}. Knowing when these point occur means we can identify the Mauna Loa points that reflect the CO{2} load. Earlier this year, I realized the Northern and Southern hemispheres are separate 'earths' bounded by an equator. That insight means understanding the characteristics of polar ice, the effects of oceans, and land biomass. Bob Wilson
Based on my traditional lairnin', N and S hemispheres mix in about 3 years in the troposphere and about 10 years in the stratosphere. This could be supplanted by better current knowledge, but some body would need to do the work. Anyway, stratosphere matters little for CO2 forcing and H2O feedback. Stratosphere has non-climate roles.. I wonder why your crossing points are important for you. This OCO satellite is now well poised to see the patterns resulting from a large El Nino, currently spinning up. DO NOT tell me that funding for data collection and analysis has gone away. We need this, more than effing Mars.
I have long been concerned that one point source for measurements may not reflect the true, global CO{2} level. They have the advantage of a long history with well reviewed and accurate data. But they also suffer the same problem that someone using a single source, tide table suffers. Yes and no. The USA has no monopoly on satellites and environmental metrics. More importantly, the effects of man-made, global warming can not be evaded or hidden. Bob Wilson
Let us agree that global CO2 measurements have some value. No on else is flying an orbital bird like OCO. No one has assembled the 'top of troposphere' CO2 measurements from commercial flights with the CO2 sensors in place. If Global CO2 distributions are of value, then somebody needs to get on with it. Data we got. Patterns ??? Does no one care about this, beyond me and Big Bob?
My Dad once told me: “When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened.” – John M. Richardson, Jr This actually came from: “There are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.” – Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, 1532 AD Source: There Are Two Kinds of People In The World: Those Who Think There Are Two Kinds of People In The World and Those Who Don’t | Dan Spira On the original subject, I am surprised we don't see higher latitudes in the OCO-2 data. The NASA models that predate OCO-2 showed significant CO{2} in the polar latitudes when it is most needed, the winter season. Bob Wilson ps. I do like, "There are three kinds of people in the world: Those who know math and those who don’t."
So many more interesting questions chasing research dollars, I don't think many think ghg distribution models or mona loa are so bad that they really care to push this area. Lots of research money is wasted on crap studies, but .... I don't think this research is more important than most NASA or NOAA spending priorities.
Atmospheric CO2 is increasing from fossil-C burning, but slowed by half by biological sequestration. How is it going? Let us take a closer look. Scripps monthly CO2 record from Mauna Loa Hawaii since 1958 is the subject. Every year, May CO2 is the highest and October is the lowest, pointing to a shifting annual balance between photosynthesis and decomposition in the Northern Hemisphere. I took the entire record and described its increase with a 6th order polynomial regression (better than anything else including exponential increase). In May of each year the CO2 was above that model because of decomposition, and in each October it was below because of photosynthesis. Those differences through time are of interest as we consider how net biological carbon sequestration has been going, and how it might go in the future. The attached figure shows CO2 (ppm) compared to that smoothly increasing model in May (positive respiration peak in red) and in October (negative photosynthesis peak in green) since 1958. Throughout this period, net respiration has been very slowly increasing, and in particular since 1998 (a year of interest because of ENSO). Net photosynthesis (reducing CO2) has not increased; in particular not since 1998. Combining these two patterns, we can not conclude that net biological carbon sequestration is ‘holding’, nor that it can continue to compensate for future +CO2. A better way to examine these data would be to accumulate areas ‘under the curve’ during months before and after May and October in each year. I’d need to do this before sending a manuscript to any of the journals. Scripps has not yet posted 2015 October CO2, and it’s also needed. There have been previously published examinations of how ENSO events appear to change biological carbon sequestration, but not for separate decadal trends of decomposition and photosynthesis.
I took a slightly different approach: Use a modified sine+cosine function that handles the solar radiance as a function of orbital mechanics The shorter, more intense Southern summer versus longer, less intense Northern summer Apply two surface filters Arable land or vegetation index such a desert, forest, grass lands, e.t.c. Sea surface temperatures I've omitted nutrient currents and precipitation, these MAY be too difficult to annually quantify. I also have a problem with a single, Northern hemisphere data point. We know from direct observations that Northern wind currents a subject to some variability. This means events outside of anyone's control (i.e., El Nino/La Nina) and clearing forests with slash-and-burn as well as policies that affect CO{2} production are more independent variables. But that does not mean a homogeneous model is useless. The most interesting bits are when a model disagrees with 'reality' because that means 'time to ask why.' Sorry if my babbling makes no sense but it was my first thoughts in a few minutes. I'll re-read later tonight and maybe get a better clue to share. Definitely, I would avoid a 6 degree polynomial . . . (i.e., there be dragons here). Bob Wilson
Now there are several other CO2 records including S Pole. They are all shorter though. My aim with 6 poly is to get a good curve fit everywhere. Expo does not achieve that. Two other alternatives exist, create many different short-term fits and calculate from them (lots of work) or use the Scripps smoothed 'product' in another column of the supplied csv spreadsheet (no work at all). I reckon that the latter will closely resemble what i've done but... Different starting years provide very different results for 'is respiration increasing?' and 'is photosynthesis flat?'. This is the problem, not athletic curve fitting. When 2015 October gets posted I'll do it again with 'under the curve' areas.
Since Bob is concerned about dragons, I compared the 6th order polynomial to the Scripps smoothed values. I'd show their utter sameness, but that would be so boring. Anyway using Scripps, I compared areas under the curve each year for 'photosynthesis-dominated' months (lower than smoothed) and 'decomposition-dominated' months (higher than smoothed). This should be more informative than just looking at May and October values through time. I admit to being totally floored by the results. The ups and downs showed @69 are totally gone. Suspiciously so, one might say. The patterns for 1959 until most recent are completely clear. The decomposition phase is increasing 50% faster than the photosynthesis phase, throughout the record. No ups and downs that we'd want to compare to ENSO cycles etc. So, y'all know enough from these words to repeat the analysis and publish it before I do. I'll send email to the Scripps folks and see if they see merit in the analysis. Science is an odd thing I tell ya. Sometime it just reaches out and grabs you.
Maybe examples from the first and latest years of analysis will help? The red areas are when monthly CO2 is higher, when decomposition dominates. The green areas are opposite, dominated by photosynthesis. Note that the vertical CO2 scales differ between 1959 and 2014. Areas of both curves are increasing, but decomposition is increasing faster. That is the matter to discuss with Scripps; whether it is fair to say that decomposition is increasing faster than photosynthesis. No ones' interests would be served if the net biological carbon sink is faltering. It would only suggest that more fossil-C burn remains in the air.
Perhaps I'm missing something. I was under the impression carbon isotope analysis had settled the amount of fossil fuel vs biological carbon. I need to re-read the thread to understand the goal. Don't take my mumblings as anything but a first impression. About 'the dragons'. Even though I've used excel generated, 6-degree polynomial, trend-lines to address what could (should) have been handled by other averaging schemes, I had no illusions about what I was doing. It was a hack like using 22/7 for a pi approximation. Not an exact solution, it allows seeing patterns in the data. 'The dragon' would be publishing the 6-degree polynomial because the sample data was not from a known, 6-element, phenomena. So in my imprecise understanding of the goal, I was trying to suggest using forcing functions of solar radiance which primarily comes from orbital mechanics over the earth sea and land. In short, "never mind." Bob Wilson
Is the change mainly caused by the land use changes for population and agriculture. It seems unlikely this is caused by burning fossil fuels.
Isotopes: airborne CO2 is getting 'lighter', meaning less 13C relative to 12C. This points to more fossil-C in the blend. As opposed to more outgassing from oceans. But it is not what I am talking about in the graph etc. AustinG I take the point that deforestation can shift the balance away from photosynthesis and towards decomposition. Would expect it to be involved if this trend through time is real. Does temperature as an isolated factor has stronger effects on photosynthesis or decomposition? This has been debated, inconclusively, for a long time. I think it could make a nice dissertation project, with plant species chosen to represent a wide phylogenetic range. This CO2 record approaches 60 years. Not nearly enough to present orbital dynamics patters. Just barely enough to reveal marine dynamics (or some of them) Covers 5+ solar cycles (which don't show) and several ENSO cycles. It is most odd to me that the ENSO does not, here, because it does so in other examinations of this CO2 record .
Eocene thermal max was about 55 million years ago, when mammals were mere shadows of their current selves. Palo proxies for temperature and CO2 suggested (a lot) warmer and CO2 of 1200 ppm or higher. But new research suggests that CO2 might have been only 680 ppm: Eocene atmospheric CO2 from the nahcolite proxy This one study may point towards a higher climate sensitivity to CO2, and we don't be liking that! Not while new CO2 emissions continue at a notably high rate. I hasten to add that 11 million years after PETM, there was much lower CO2 and a serious ice age. Vague paleobiology suggests that Azolla, duckweed, a nitrogen-fixing aquatic plant was involved. Then after, geology/tectonics added more CO2 and the ice melted. Those things support the (vague) Gaia hypothesis, on the scales of millions of years. A different game is now afoot over hundred(s) years time scale. And <700 ppm CO2 is a whack? I wish I had not seen this Geology paper but them's the breaks.
I hope you enjoy The Fantastically Strange Origin of Most Coal on Earth – Phenomena: Curiously Krulwich Telling the story of coal as a mismatch between new-fangled tree growth and organisms capable of turning trees back into CO2. It seems incorrect in some details, but I'd rather appreciate the work of a skilled science communicator. Do wish that he had mentioned that this mismatch led to O2 even higher than current levels, and CO2 for the first time coming down to the range of current levels. If you had a time machine, 300 MYa is the earliest you could go back to without breathing assistance. For so much of (even the biotic subset of) Earth history, it would not have been a nice place for us.
It being Thursday, a new weekly issue of Nature. This time you can read analysis by Ganopolski et al. about glacial ages. They reckon that CO2 being at 280 ppm around the time of the Industrial Revolution was enough to prevent the start of glaciation then. Which would have otherwise occurred because of Milankovitch. Now with more CO2, we are insured against the next glacial age for 50,000 (or 100,000) years. That would be a very long time, and folks who find little value in 100-y scale prospective modeling are not going to find it here either. At least we might agree that we re at (or near) some type of T max now, relative to some prior interval. That is as bland as I can be. Hard work indeed to assert that such things are only weakly related to CO2. Or not at all? That a few folks are still willing to push that ball up that hill is a testament to human optimism, if nothing else.
Well that sure makes a silk purse. <grins> I'm not setting my hair on fire . . . others will post-mortem(*). Just the temperature peak from the CO{2} blanket remains an interesting puzzle. Bob Wilson * - unless a peat bog cemetery plot comes available.
