Discussion > Why ARE levels of CO2 rising right now?
Hello Gixxerboy
Seriously I am not arguing with the trend at ML, what I am suggesting is that the daily figures indicate that there is a lot going on within that trend. Many years ago before computers, I trained as an accountant for a period of years. In attempting to balance the books one sometimes ended up with a small difference between debits and credits and the temptation is to decide it is unimportant and stuff it into a suspense a/c. The truth though could be that huge errors exist which net down to the small balance.
Murry Salby suggests that since on a daily basis, changes in total CO2 (from ML) are totally disconnected from human emissions then it should not be assumed that rising total CO2 is simply rising human emissions.
Should it be true that the cause is not human emissions then I think we should find out what the mechanisms are.
Dung
Hi Dung
That's an interesting point. Roy Spencer has of course pronounced on the possibility that at least some of the increase in CO2, including the depleted C13 type, is caused by rising temperatures:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/01/increasing-atmospheric-co2-manmade%E2%80%A6or-natural/
It's a seductive argument but is it true?
Gixxerboy
Dung, I think it is very probably almost entirely due to temperature changes in the Mauna Loa monitoring period that are driving CO2 changes.
The WUWT post
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/24/bob-carters-essay-in-fp-policymakers-have-quietly-given-up-trying-to-cut-%C2%ADcarbon-dioxide-emissions/
[ignore the title of the post] is a very good read. Concentrate primarily on the comments by Bart, and the replies/criticisms of Robert Brown and Richard Courtney. The graph posted by Bart is striking
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/derivative/mean:24/plot/gistemp/from:1959/scale:0.2/offset:0.08
but I've started looking at the data myself, and it's very easy to produce even more compelling ones showing Bart's "excellent tracking of the temperature in dCO2/dt" [though others have in fact already pointed this out]
I'll post a longer reply if I get time on my "plausible explanations" of where the carbon cycle is probably being badly misunderstood.
michael hart
Is http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html a useful site for greenhouse gas measurements?
Alatedin
My instinct is to agree that temperature is the cause over the long term but I think there are big time lags involved there (have not read your recommended articles yet but will do so after this post). However there has "we think" been no warming for 15 years so no temperature rise to drive CO2.
Dung
michael hart
I thought Carter's article was admirable without involving a lot of science.
Robert Brown appeared to be high on something I probably can not afford.
Bart posted a nice graph showing a vague correlation between CO2 and temp over about 50 years but that does not prove anything to me.
Vostok shows a minimum 800 year lag between temp and CO2 and this holds for roughly 700,000 years. Add to that the inconvenient fact that CO2 levels have continued to rise for the 15 years that temp has been static and I dont see a story.
I do not believe the figures for human emissions at the moment, they are after all just estimates. The human emission figures have gone up year on year at a fairly steady rate but the world is in recession plus the USA reckons its emissions are almost back to 1990 levels. Once again it does not add up.
Dung
Dung
BBD, however aggravating, is not a serial bullshitter. And the CO2 record is no more or less prone to mis-recording, 'adjustment' or other calumnies than any other record. In my study, despite its unpromising site on the side of a volcano, it is hard to argue the trend at ML.
There are other issues. That CO2 has increased, as measured, is simply not important.