Arguments
Comparing CO2 emissions to CO2 levels
What the science says...
When CO2 emissions are compared directly to CO2 levels, there is a strong correlation in the long term trends. This is independently confirmed by carbon isotopes which find the falling ratio of C13/C12 correlates well with fossil fuel emissions.
Climate Myth...
CO2 emissions do not correlate with CO2 concentration
'It is easily demonstrated that there is no correlation between CO2 emissions and atmospheric CO2 concentration. Over the three years from 1979 to 1982 when CO2 emissions were decreasing due to the rapid increase in the price of oil that drastically reduced consumption, there was no change in the rate of increase in atmospheric concentration of CO2 proving that humans were not the primary source for the increase in concentration.' (Laurence Gould)
To directly compare CO2 emissions to atmospheric CO2 levels, both sets of data can be converted to gigatonnes of CO2. The CO2 emissions data is typically expressed in gigatonnes carbon (GtC). One gigatonne is equal to one billion tonnes. This means they've only included the carbon element of the carbon dioxide molecule. The atomic mass of carbon is 12, while the atomic mass of CO2 is 44. Therefore, to convert from gigatonnes carbon to gigatonnes of carbon dioxide, you simply multiply 44 over 12. In other words, 1 gigatonne of carbon equals 3.67 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide.
Atmospheric CO2 levels are expressed in parts per million by volume (ppm). To convert from ppm to gigatonne of carbon, the conversion tables of the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center advise that 1 part per million of atmospheric CO2 is equivalent to 2.13 Gigatonnes Carbon. Using our 44 over 12 rule, this means 1ppm = 7.8 Gigatonnes of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere.
[Note that the conversion is different for Gigatonnes of Carbon Dioxide emissions, because natural sinks (ocean and biosphere) absorb approximately 55% of human emissions, so the "airborne fraction" added to the atmosphere is about 45%. This means 1ppm = 17.3 Gigatonnes of Carbon Dioxide emissions.]
The two time series can both be plotted together expressed as gigatonnes of carbon dioxide:
Figure 1: CO2 levels (Green Line - Law Dome, East Antarctica and Blue line - Mauna Loa, Hawaii) and Cumulative CO2 emissions in gigatonnes of CO2 (Red Line - CDIAC).
So putting it all together, Figure 1 is a plot of the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere (top) versus the total amount of CO2 humans have emitted into the atmosphere (bottom). Several features jump out. Firstly, the similar shape of the curves (dare I say hockey stick shaped). We have correlation but do we have causality?
It isn't too much of a stretch to imagine the amount of CO2 we put into the atmosphere might have a causality link with the amount of CO2 that remains in the atmosphere. Nevertheless, further confirmation comes by analysing the types of CO2 found in the air. The carbon atom has several different isotopes (eg - different number of neutrons). Carbon 12 has 6 neutrons, carbon 13 has 7 neutrons. Plants have a lower C13/C12 ratio than in the atmosphere. If rising atmospheric CO2 comes fossil fuels, the C13/C12 should be falling. Indeed this is what is occuring (Ghosh 2003) and the trend correlates with the trend in global emissions.
Figure 3: Annual global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement manufacture in GtC yr–1 (black), annual averages of the 13C/12C ratio measured in atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa from 1981 to 2002 (red). (IPCC AR4)
This rebuttal was updated by Kyle Pressler in September 2021 to replace broken links. The updates are a result of our call for help published in May 2021.
Last updated on 19 February 2020 by John Cook. View Archives
Is this particular myth and its answer saying: "The Keeling curve has not yet reflected the economic activity rise of China yet?"
* No, I wasn't quite sure how to punctutate that!!
I find this one bit hard. While I can accept what is written above, I come unstuck when comparing it all with what is written at: https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/the-trouble-with-c12-c13-ratios/
Is there any simple answer or is the complexity muddying the waters?
Patrickjl @3 , your chiefio.wordpress reference = a waste of time.
It is a 2009 article, containing one or two thinly specious arguments [e.g. that recent forest clearing favoring C4-metabolism grasses which deal with carbon-13 slightly differently from C3 plants . . . thus contaminating/invalidating the standard C12/C13 ratio conclusions].
Worse, the arguments are not quantified (i.e. are little more than handwaving).
Worse still, they are accompanied by the Usual Suspects -— a grabbag of run-of-the-mill anti-science nonsense arguments, all long-debunked but living a zombie-like undead existence on Denialist websites.
[ The author himself claims to be a frequent contributing author at WUWT. My apologies, if that is taken as an Ad Hominem ! ;-) ]
All in all, chiefio-wordpress is a waste of readers' time.
Sorry for the harsh review, Patrick. "Chiefio" was a waste of your time, too.
Patrickjl,
What Eclectic said x2.
Chiefio restates questions as problems when the answers are well knows. For example, he questions wether we know the ratio of C12/13 at midocean ridges. Seems like a good question since the mid-ocean ridges are underwater. Except Iceland is a midocean ridge with many active volcanoes so this ratio has been measured. Undoubtedly scientists have also measured this ratio for other mid-ocean ridges.
This is not an issue of scientists not knowing the answers but Chiefio has made no effort to find the answers to the questions he asks. There is probably a lot of Chiefio ignoring the answers when they are provided to him.
It is easy to make any problem look hard if you ignore the answers scientists have found.
Can you please explain more about the airborne fraction of CO2? The models of CO2's atmospheric lifetime show that half the original CO2 emission is taken up by the oceans and vegetation in about 30 years. But according to the global carbon budget and the airborne fraction, 55% or so is removed from the atmosphere each year.
So for emission scenarios of different sectors or gases, how is the airborne fraction factored in? GWP calculations, for example, rely on the AGWP or each gas compared to the AGWP of CO2, so is CO2's AGWP devalued by the airborne fraction when compared to, say, methane from fugitive emissions (leaks).
This would not be an issue for climate models I imagine (because they work on the CO2 in the atmosphere), but for any analysis of sectors or gases it must make a difference.
Gerard Bisshop @5,
The time for half a CO2 pulse to be drawn-down out of the atmosphere into oceans & biosphere is dependent on the size of the pulse. The graph you link to (from Joos et al 2013) showing 30yr is for a 100Gt(C) pulse, so a pulse equal to a decade's worth of anthropogenic emissions. Anthropogenic emissions are approaching 700Gt(C) and models for a 1,000Gt(C) pulse or 5,000Gt(C) pulse show it takes much longer to reach that 50%-of-pulse level, perhaps 150y & 450y respectively (eg Archer et al 2009), thus making the draw-down numbers more at odds with Af=45% (which means 55% is removed within the year).
The 'circle' is squared because Af is a measure of the annual draw-down compared with a single year's emissions. Draw-down value is of course dependent on far more than a single year's emissions, indeed dependent on the emissions accumulated over the previous decades. So that 55% comprises, say, 2% of Y(0), 1.5% of Y(-1), 1.25% of Y(-2), 1% Y(-3), etc, these all adding up to 55% of Y(0). If we did manage to zero emissions in 2021, draw-down would continue, the atmospheric CO2 would thus drop and the calculation of Af would require a division by zero.
GWP numbers by definition yield GWP(CO2)=1 and use the forcing resulting over a specified period (eg 100y) from 1t(CO2) released into the atmosphere after draw-down is factored in, a draw-down which is dependent on expected accumulative totals of CO2 emissions. The level of draw-down is not considered set in stone and still subject to research. For instance CarbonBrief have coverage of a recent paper reassessing the ocean drawdown. So far, the GCMs do not model the carbon cycle (and of course have to assume future anthropogenic emissions fo all GHGs) so the level of CO2 (and other GHG levels) are inputs assumed for each GCM run.
Thankyou MA Rodger for your time responding to this query, it's greatly appreciated.
I have a follow on question. Regarding the influence of size of emission on the CO2 response function, it appears from Figure 7 of Joos et al 2013 that a pulse equivalent to one year's emissions follows a very similar path to the 10 year equivalent pulse above (at least for the first decade or so), indicating that the remaining fraction from the pulse is close to 100% (maybe 90%) in the first year after emission.
As time goes by, the CO2 pulse removal from the atmosphere slows. So in the initial decade, almost 40% is removed, and in the 9th decade, only a few % are removed. So a cumulative removal curve of all previous years would be more heavily influenced by removal of recent emissions.
Which brings me to my question - given that Joos et al 2013 shows removal of recent emissions to be less than 10% in the first year, and in subsequent years removal drops at a lesser rate, I can only conclude that all the CO2 response functions start with the pulse already-discounted by the airborne fraction.
Obviously, this is not an issue for climate models, that deal only in atmospheric concentrations, and from what I can make out, the IPCC representative pathways that link emissions with future warming also use response function equations something like Joos et al 2013, that do not seem to discount emissions, but deal in atmospheric concentrations.
I'm sorry to labour this, and there may be a simple explanation, but I am struggling to find it, and it seems critical to my understanding the relationship between CO2 and other gases.
Sorry MA Rodger, I just did the sums on the remaining fraction loss for this and previous years and it is as you said in your earlier post - the remaining fraction adds up to be (1-) the sum of losses in all previous emission years - problem solved!
thanks for your help.
I have tried comparing ghg emissions and atmospheric CO2 (yearly figures) in an x-y diagram to get a picture of the degree of coupling, time lag between emission and atmospheric concentration and the effects of economic- politic- and distributioncrises. But the data I have used is not the same as you. And I also find interesting differences between the period before the oil-crisis in the 1970-ies and aftewards. I think the storing and later use of oil and coal can have an impact. As well as strategic planning. Can you recommend any continous sources of data for lets say the period from 1900 up until today, for (anthropogenic) GHG emissions and atmospheric CO2?
Fred Torssander @10,
Unless looking at the latitudinal trends (so looking at the annual wobble is disappeared at the south pole or the year-plus time lag between northern and southern hemisphere CO2 values), I haven't found the identification of time-lags possible due to the effect of ENSO and volcanic erruptions. So identifying levels of stored FF through a less-than vigorous rise in CO2 does sound a step too far. So best of luck with that.
If you are asking for annual data back to 1900, you evidently aren't yet using the Global Carbon Project data. The GCP's 'historic' data sheet gives values for FF emissions and atmospheric 'growth' back to1750 and Land Use net emissions back to 1850.
Thanks for your encouragement. I wrote to NOAA and got their table for the diagram on LINK.
It goes back to 1751 and is unbroken series. I will try to fix the change back and forth at the oil crisis by moving the time lag. The reason for my scepticism towards emission data is that there is a trade war on, and statistics is a rather cheap and efficient way to confuse the enemy. LINK
[DB] Shortened and hyperlinked URLS breaking Recent Comments thread formatting. Inserted image.
The following paper tries to argue that CO2 from fossil fuels accounts for only a small percentage of the increase we've seen, using some hand-waving arguments about C14.
It's published in an obscrure journal on the health effects of radiation, and has zero citations, but seems to be gaining traction among denialists.
Maybe worth a detailed rebuttal?
https://journals.lww.com/health-physics/fulltext/...[and so on]
[BL] Thanks for mentioning this paper. The SkS team has been told about this recently, and some sort of response is in preparation.
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JimCA @13 ,
there is no need for rebuttal of that paper. It is garbage.
The authors Skrable et al., have produced a nonsense paper, which (as you say) has been published in an entirely inappropriate journal for the subject matter of the atmosphere & carbon cycle. Cruelty to the poor old reviewers, having this dropped onto their plate, and being pressured to pass it through.
Kenneth Skrable has qualifications in the field of radioactivity, I gather.
Somehow the authors have claimed a residual [atmospheric CO2] anthropogenic level of 12% over the 1750 - 2018 period . . . "much too low to be the cause of global warming". The authors seem oblivious to the mountain of evidence that they are wrong about climate science. Additionally, they handwave away the 13-Carbon atmospheric evidence.
I have skimmed through the paper, but have not bothered to look in detail at their 14-Carbon arguments ~ no more would I look in detail at the calculations of any authors who claim to have invented a Perpetual Motion machine.
Because when someone gets nonsense results, you know that there must be major faulty logic somewhere in his/her workings. It is just not worth the time to chase down the error/errors.
Probably, Skrable & colleagues are using some form of motivated reasoning where they delude themselves via re-defining terms to suit themselves . . . while at the same time ignoring several Elephants in the Room.
I suspect the Skrable et al., paper will make a minor splash among Denialists . . . and then soon enough be put on their back burner, along with all the other nonsense calculations claiming 3% anthropogenic CO2 . . . or 4% . . . or 12% . . . or 23% . . . or whatever. And then, at different occasions (despite the shameless contradictions) they will handwave at a single one of these figures, for rhetorical effect.
How is it that otherwise-intelligent people (even the odd Nobel Laureate) get to produce such nonsense? The human brain is a marvel !
Eclectic @14,
I would be more specific than describe Skrable et al (2022) 'World Atmospheric CO2, Its 14C Specific Activity, Non-fossil Component, Anthropogenic Fossil Component, and Emissions (1750–2018)' simply as "garbage". It is 'academically dysfunctional'.
Skrable et al tell us that they are carrying out analysis that has so far been overlooked by science saying:-
These references are made bizarrely to an Australian Bureau of Meteorology 'State of the Climate 2014' report, and also to two papers (here & here) which use ice cores and analysis of 13C to demonstrate the anthropogenic impact to AD1900. For some reason with this referencing, Skrable et al use a URL to a WMO GHG Bulletin which does provide the 14C analysis Skrable et al are saying hasn't been done (although Skrable et al specifically talk only of analysis of atmospheric 14C).
And the go-to place for any researcher venturing into the world of climatology is the IPCC Assessment Reports and AR6 Chapter 5 Section 5.2.1.2 is far from silent on the matter, including analyses of 14C in the atmosphere, saying:-
It is entirely inept of Skrable et al to ignore such obvious literature which they attempt to overturn.
Thanks, MA Rodger.
Your expert analyses are always "gold medal". [For readers at a later date, we are currently in the midst of the Beijing Winter Olympics.]
Skrable et alia could be forgiven for being inept & dysfunctional . . . if only . . . if only they happened to be advancing our understanding of climate science, rather than impeding science.
One other point, MA Rodger ~ if the learned journal decided to retract the Skrable paper, would that then make the ex-paper even more exSkrable? (sorry . . . couldn't resist ! )
Thanks, Eclectic@14 and MA Rodger@15.
As someone in an unrelated field, it's reassuring to see that my naive reactions to it were well aligned with more capable reactions from experts. Helps me trust my own judgement here a bit more...
The Skrable, et al paper appears akin to last summer's HGSS mess, i.e., HG6-9, Case D in taxonomy of how poor climate papers get published, off-topic journal, weak editorial process, possible "pal review." Publisher Copernicus handled this well, paper retracted, relevant editor and author/editor left.
In this case, the 3 authors were labeled as affiliated with UMass Lowell.
Kenneth Skrable was already emeritus in 2012, p.14 of physics dept brochure.
George Chabot is Professor Emeritus of Physics.
Clayton French is also Professor Emeritus of Physics and you can see his papers there, many coauthored with Skrable and Chabot, often published in Health Physics.
Some were coauthored with current UMAss Lowell prof Mark A. Tries, who is one of the editors at Health Physics.
His 2000 PhD Dissertation p.3 had:
Supervisor: George Chabot, also on p.4. and see p.8 for Acknowledgments
Committee: Kenneth Skrable, Gus Couchell, Clayton French.
Of course, that may be coincidence, as the 3 authors had published many papers in Health Physics, but the question must be raised, given the editorial process:
It appears that a paper is handed over to associate editor who then makes the decisions, akin to the infamous de Freitas pal review at Climate Research years ago.
This case also seems akin the the (eventual) retraction of Florides et al(2013), accomplished by dogged work of SKS' Ari Jokamaki. Sooner or later, journals need to learn to reject papers out of their field.
JohnMashey @18 , thanks for that information.
Particularly good was the reference to the journal's declared usage of a double blind process by an associate editor and two reviewers. What could possibly go wrong?
In the end , it is the outcome that matters.
"By their fruits ye shall know them" ~ is the biblical phrase.
If anyone doubts that Skrable et al got it wrong, they should read the five published responses to it. They're devastating.
I have the Skrable, Chabot & French paper, as well as the five "comment on" response papers which Health Physics published, Skrable's replies to the responses, Skrable's later letter & paper, a "comments on" response to that one by Dr. David E. Andrews, and Skrable's response to that, all on my site, here:
https://sealevel.info/Skrable2022/
My initial motivation for putting the responses on my site was to make them available, to debunk the errors in Skrable's paper, since Health Physics had paywalled all but the first page of each "comment-on" response. (I obtained the responses, in some cases, by contacting their authors.)
Fortunately, Health Physics subsequently un-paywalled them. But it's still handy to have all that material together, in one place.
I did notice a small problem with this article. The red trace in Figure 1 is labeled "Total CO2 Emissions (Total amount of CO2 emitted by humans)." But it is not actually the total amount, since it excluldes CO2 from land use changes (forest clearing, swamp draining, etc.).
I don't have a problem with that choice, since fossil carbon emissions are known with reasonable accuracy, and land use change emissions are not. However, a better label for the red trace would be "Total fossil CO2 Emissions (Total amount of CO2 released by burning fossil fuels and making cement)."
Another problem is that the graph appears to end with CDIAC's 2013 emission data. Newer data from multiple sources can be found here:
https://sealevel.info/carbon/
Daveburton @20 ,
thank you for supplying that link < /Skrable2022/ > to some criticisms of the Skrable et al paper. And the criticisms are scathing.
Very evidently, the Skrable paper should have been retracted.
btw, Dave, in the list of links shown at your website, the second-to-last one (to EdBerry) comes up as Page Not Found. #But please do not bother to correct that, since Ed Berry is mostly a complete waste of readers' time.
Somehow I get the sense Dave's merely trying to generate traffic for his website. These posts are starting to border on spam.
Rob H ~ never would I have thought you had such a cynical streak.
And yes, DaveBurton should self-cancel his website, and start off with a clean sheet, correcting all the errors & misleading information.
Thank you, Eclectic, for bringing the dead Ed Berry link to my attention! If have corrected it. (It appears that he reorganized his site.)
Rob, I guess you didn't notice that my site is not monetized. So "generating traffic" is of no use to me. It's a purely pro bono project. I merely hope that it is useful to someone.
If either of you gentlemen (or anyone else) find another error, or any misleading information, on my site, I will be grateful if you bring them to my attention. Even punctuation or spelling errors will earn my gratitude.
My full contact info is on my site, so please contact me directly, if you find an error. I visit this site only sporadically, so if you direct a comment to me here I might not notice it.
[BL] Empirical evidence here suggests that you are unwilling to follow simple instructions to post where things are on topic, and unwilling to to accept the corrections to errors that you post here.
When you say "if you find an error. I visit this site only sporadically, so if you direct a comment to me here I might not notice it.", this tells us that you are not here to engage in honest discussion. People that comment here are expected to follow the conversation and respond to criticism. As such, your postings are no longer welcome.
Dave, I did not infer that you were doing it out of a monetary motivation. "Pro bono" would also be a poor selection of words since that generally refers to legal work done for free to benefit people of lower income. Your site is, as far as I can see, merely a non-expert pretending to be an expert and seeking validation in that effort.
Your site could potentially be useful if you would submit to some form of review process by people who are genuine experts in the fields you're commenting on. Short of that you're just promoting misinformation based in your personal ignorances.