Earlier this year, I wrote a post about a paper by Hermann Harde that argued that most of the rise in atmospheric CO2 was natural. If you want more details of why this suggestion is nonsense, you can read my earlier post. What I was going to mention in this post is that a number of us have just published a response.
The history of this is essentially that Gavin Schmidt, as he suggested in this Realclimate post, set up an Overleaf document and contacted those who had shown interest. It was lead by Peter Köhler, and colleagues, from the Alfred-Wegener-Institut, but also included myself, Eli Rabett, and Richard Zeebe from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Gavin Cawley also provided some very valuable comments and suggestions.
I don’t need to say too much about the details of our paper. It essentially highlights that the Harde paper confuses the residence time of an individual molecule (years) with the adjustment time for an enhancement of atmospheric CO2 (centuries). It also points out that you can’t model the evolution of atmospheric CO2 with a single equation. You need to consider at least two reservoirs (atmosphere and surface ocean) and this requires at least two equations that are solved simultaneously.
We also point out that it’s important to consider the Revelle factor, which limits how much of our emissions can be taken up by the oceans (we would expect – depending on how much we emit – that 20-30% of our emissions will remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years). Additionally, there were issues with Harde’s application of his model to paleoclimate, and there were a number of papers that he really should have cited (such as citing Essenhigh 2009 paper, while failing to cite Gavin Cawley’s response).
We end our paper by suggesting that Harde’s paper be withdrawn. I’m normally a little uncomfortable with suggesting that a paper that does not involve fraud, or plagiarism, be withdrawn. However, Harde’s paper is so obviously flawed that it is remarkable that it made it through the editorial, and review, process without being rejected. It might be better if it were withdrawn, but at least there is now a formal response that highlights the numerous issues.
...and Then There's Physics 
Bravo.
Quite a few papers have been retracted recently for making mistakes. In those cases, however, it supposedly(*) is the author that takes the initiative.
(*) In reality, in some cases there very likely is pressure from the Editor(s) to retract.
COPE actually states that “Journal editors should consider retracting a publication if they have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error)”
Click to access retraction%20guidelines_0.pdf
Moreover: “Retraction should usually be reserved for publications that are so seriously flawed (for whatever reason) that their findings or conclusions should not be relied upon.”
Harde’s paper definitely fits this category…
Marco,
Thanks, I hadn’t seen the suggestion that retraction should be considered if a paper’s findings are unreliable. It does make sense in cases where it’s obvious that the paper’s results are clearly flawed.
Bravo indeed!
I think the reason Prof. Harde’s paper made it through review can be found in the author information pack for the journal:
which seems to me a recipe for pal-review, I suspect I can guess some of those likely to have been on any such list. I suspect that is also how the earlier carbon cycle paper by Humlum et al. (which also was the subject of peer-reviewed comments) that was published in the same journal. IMHO journals should never do this. For any paper within the scope of the journal, there should be an action editor sufficiently familiar with the sub-field to identify suitable reviewers for themselves and if they can’t they shouldn’t handle it. However, they are only human and we all make mistakes…
The problem with the paper is made very obvious by the fact that Prof. Harde doesn’t provide a plot of the output of his models against the observations, which is a very natural thing to do if you want to show that your model provides a good fit to the data. The closest we get in the paper is figure 3:
I tried reproducing this myself, but plotting the actual ice core data, rather than giving error bars:
Not so good. In particular it is clear that in the ice core data, the relationship between temperature and CO2 is linear, and the modern observations don’t fit the pattern of the ice core data (and neither does Prof. Harde’s model). It isn’t at all clear how the error bars for the observations for Harde’s figure 3 were calculated, I suspect they may be “subjective”.
Note there are substantial problems with my diagram as well (I learned a lot from my discussions with the authors of the paper!), particularly the Vostok temperatures are regional Antarctic temperatures, rather than global temperatures. IIRC the Vostok core includes interglacial periods that were about as warm as it is now (if not warmer?), so if Prof. Harde’s model is correct, it is hard to see why CO2 concentrations were not approaching 400ppm then (I’d need to go and check the details on that, so caveat emptor).
Anyway, it is a shame that the effort it takes to respond to ill-informed misleading papers, such as this one, is so much higher than it is apparently to produce them, but I’m glad someone took the trouble to do it in this case.
Here is my attempt at implementing Prof. Harde’s model of post-industrial conditions, using an ODE solver to drive the model with observed temperatures:
This shows why a temperature driven model for atmospheric CO2 with a short “residence” time can’t explain the observed rise in atmospheric CO2. The temperature data has lots of decadal+ scale variability, and a “residence” time of only 4 years isn’t enough to smooth it out, so it will predict that CO2 will rise with similar decadal+ scale variability. The trouble is that it doesn’t, the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 is pretty smooth, and a simple (and conventional) one-box carbon cycle model (based on the one in my paper) with an approx. 50-70 year adjustment time (don’t worry, it also has a residence time of 4-5 years ;o) does a much better job.
Dikran,
Thanks, very nice.
Cheers, I’m glad there was a suitable venue to share the diagrams at last! I like your new avatar/icon BTW, if I had an avatar representing my work it would have to be an animated GIF of (apparently meaningless) numbers changing very slowly ;o)
“It also points out that you can’t model the evolution of atmospheric CO2 with a single equation. “
I can. It’s variously referred to as dispersive diffusion — a classical diffusion equation solved with a MaxEntropy distribution of diffusivity values. This maps to the heuristically determined set of factors known as the Berne formulation.
Geo,
Well, okay, but that is presumably determining net flux and your diffusion coefficient is presumably implicitly incorporating information about the two reservoirs.
The numerical solution to diffusion in that geometry is a slab model, which is an infinite set of differential equations representing the flow between an infinite number of reservoirs. The analytical solution to that geometry is an erf. As an analogous application, the ocean/atmosphere interface is equivalent to the solid/vapor interface used for diffusional doping of a semiconductor. The industry has this process characterized very well and the erf works effectively.
But with a range of diffusivities representing the different pathways to CO2 sequestration, the erf can be replaced with another formulation that takes into account the variability. So the Berne formulation is a heuristic for the description of the actual diffusional physics. They use the heuristic because that’s all they need apparently. There’s nothing wrong with it but they will never be able to approximate the diffusional fat-tail at infinite time because they are using a set of exponentials instead of an erf. The slowest exp decay is what they use for the fat tail.
So, who will reply to Harde’s latest missive missile that misses massively? …
Radiation Transfer Calculations and Assessment of Global Warming by CO2
https://www.hindawi.com/archive/2017/9251034/
“Including solar and cloud effects as well as all relevant feedback processes our simulations give an equilibrium climate sensitivity of Cs = 0.7°C (temperature increase at doubled CO2) and a solar sensitivity of Ss = 0.17°C (at 0.1% increase of the total solar irradiance). Then CO2 contributes 40% and the Sun 60% to global warming over the last century.”
Rust Never Sleeps
Everett,
I don’t know if anyone is going to bother with that one.
Is there a link to this paper?
cce,
Good point. I managed to forget to provide a link in the post (fixed now). It’s here, in case you don’t want to read the post again 🙂
Kismet?
KHome1990,
Below is a figure that might help. It shows the cumulative emissions for the 4 different Representative Pathways (RCPs) and shows how the warming depends more on how much we emit, rather than on how fast. It also shows atmospheric concentrations (bubbles) and each dot on each line is a decade. The range is represented by the width band.
Shorter:-
Wrong thread, ATTP!
Marco,
Thanks.
Figure 2.3 | Global mean surface temperature increase as a function of cumulative total global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from various lines of evidence. Multi-model results from a hierarchy of climate carbon-cycle models for each Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) until 2100 are shown (coloured lines). Model results over the historical period (1860 to 2010) are indicated in black. The coloured plume illustrates the multi-model spread over the four RCP scenarios and fades with the decreasing number of available modelsin RCP8.5. Dots indicate decadal averages, with selected decades labelled. Ellipses show total anthropogenic warming in 2100 versus cumulative CO2 emissions from 1870 to 2100 from a simple climate model (median climate response) under the scenario categories used in WGIII. Temperature values are always given relative to the 1861–1880 period, and emissions are cumulative since 1870. Black filled ellipse shows observed emissions to 2005 and observed temperatures in the decade 2000–2009 with associated uncertainties.(WGI SPM E.8, TS TFE.8, Figure 1, TS.SM.10, 12.5.4, Figure 12.45, WGIII Table SPM.1, Table 6.3)
http://ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/
Click to access SYR_AR5_FINAL_full_wcover.pdf
(page 63)
Comment on “Scrutinizing the carbon cycle and CO2 residence time in the atmosphere” by H. Harde, needed proof-reading.
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Good news, the journal has published a commentary on the failure of the review process, see RealClimate for details. For once writing a comment paper has actually had an effect (from the journal response bit):
This is real progress. Journals really should never ask authors to suggest reviewers, it is a recipe for pal-review. If the editor is unable to identify suitable reviewers for themselves, then they are likely to be too inexperienced (not sufficiently aware of the broader research field, rather than their own specialism, which takes time), or the paper is outside the scope of the journal. If nothing else, an editor that wasn’t able to select reviewers ought to pass the paper on to another editor where the paper is closer to their expertise (I’m not sure that journals should allow authors to select the editor either – that also has resulted in problems in the past).
I was rather less impressed by:
This is just ridiculous. The cause of the rise in atmospheric CO2 is not remotely a highly charged or contentious topic, and stimulating further debate on this issue (unless some startling new evidence comes along) is just an egregious waste of everybody’s time.
Also:
This implies, but doesn’t explicitly state, that the only reviewers invited to review were those suggested by the author, which is, shall we say, “sub-optimal”.
Finally:
I think they have just identified the reviewers. It isn’t that easy to think of more than five scientists that would advocate rising CO2 concentrations being natural.
I should add, I fully agree with
as a reason not to withdraw the paper. Much better than the reason that immediately preceded it! ;o)
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Story about this at RetractionWatch, which gives a link to Prof. Harde’s rejected response paper (with help from Murray Salby).
Apparently there is another paper in review (?) on this topic by Ed Berry. So I suspect Harde’s paper might not be the last that time will be wasted on, by the reviewers if not the rest of the research community.
Yet again it is a failure to understand the difference between residence time and adjustment time:
[emphasis mine]
The hubris of this is staggering. The IPCC carefully explain the difference between the two, but Berry insists that they must be the same thing. The highlighted bit is so obvious an error it is hard to see how even Berry has missed it. The residence time is not measured by changes in the level of carbon dioxide; if sources and sinks were constant the adjustment time would be infinite (as the carbon cycle would not adjust to an exogenous pulse of CO2 and atmospheric level would remain raised indefinitely), but there would still be a finite residence time because of the exchange flux.
I had lengthy discussion with Ed Berry on this post. He’s completely unreachable with, as you say, a staggering amount of hubris.
Apparently the article was submitted to an Elsevier journal, I wonder if it was “Global and Planetary Change” (as it has already published two papers on this topic). Hopefully the reviewers will spot the obvious errors (and hopefully not selected by Berry) and/or the editors will be more cautious this time.
It is bizarre how people can refuse to accept they are wrong on this one, when the evidence is so strong (common sense ought to be sufficient to strongly doubt it being a natural phenomenon!).
“It is bizarre how people can refuse to accept they are wrong on this one”
If your ideology depends on you understanding something the wrong way…
True, but it would be more sensible to attack a later, weaker link in the chain, rather than whatis probably the strongest! It is quite some ideology if it means you can’t accept any part of it.
No need to attack those later links if you can cast doubt on an earlier one!
Note also that some are deadly afraid that accepting A brings them one step closer to also accepting B. The infamous “slippery slope”.
I glanced through Ed Berry’s text and I got the impression that he is not giving a correct description of previous scientific understanding of the carbon cycle. His three analogies at the beginning of his paper are all missing the point.
A better analogy would be that there are two water pools, A and B, equal in size. Water is pumped from A to B through one tube. Then there is a recycling tube in which there is an equal flow of water from B to A. If undisturbed the water will circulate between the two pools and the water level will remain the same. This is a simple analogy of the undisturbed circulation of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere, corresponding to pool A, and the mixed layer of the ocean, corresponding to pool B. The water level corresponds to the carbon dioxide concentration level. The flow from B to A corresponds to the natural carbon dioxide emissions from the ocean to the atmosphere, the flow from A to B is the absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere¨to the ocean.
Now, assume that there is a drain connected to the wall of pool B in order that the water should not overflow the pool brims of the two communicating pools. If water from a hose flows into pool A the water level in the pools will increase. At first, all the water from the hose will increase the water level but then gradually the drain will begin to receive more and more water and finally, the water level will stabilize on a higher level. The flow from the hose corresponds to human carbon dioxide emissions, say 10 % of the natural emissions from the ocean to the atmosphere, and the flow through the drain corresponds to the flow of carbon dioxide from the mixed layer of the ocean to the main part of the ocean.
Unfortunately, the carbon dioxide flow from the mixed layer to the main part of the ocean corresponds to a very narrow drain. The carbon dioxide level has to increase very much before the drain will stabilize the level at a much higher carbon dioxide concentration than we have today. We are still in the part of the process where most of the human carbon dioxide remains in the two pools and only a small fraction leaves through the drain pipe.
I have based my analogy on the fundamental principles that were developed many years ago by Revelle and Suess (1957) and Bolin and Eriksson (1959). Those fundamental principles are a well-established and a widely accepted scientific basis for models of the carbon cycle, for example, the Bern model.
Bolin, B., and Eriksson, E., 1959: “Changes in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere and sea due to fossil fuel combustion,” Rossby Memorial Volume (New York: Rockefeller Institute Press), pp. 130-142.
Click to access n8._Bolin___Eriksson__1958corrected.pdf
Roger Revelle & Hans E. Suess (1957) Carbon Dioxide Exchange Between Atmosphere and Ocean and the Question of an Increase of Atmospheric CO2 during the Past Decades, Tellus, 9:1, 18-27, DOI: 10.3402/tellusa.v9i1.9075
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3402/tellusa.v9i1.9075
There also is a case to be made against the increase being primarily natural because of a lack of credible sources and sinks for that increase.
If we take, for example, Harde’s claim that only 10% of the increase is anthropogenic, this means 90% of the increase must be natural. Since the annual increase in atmospheric CO2 has been relatively constant at about half the annual anthropogenic addition, this means the natural net flux to the atmosphere must be about ten times bigger (and weirdly scaling with the anthropogenic contribution over the last few centuries, but let’s ignore that happy coincidence). This is an enormous amount of carbon. We’re talking about 80 Gt C per year at the moment, and while that gets progressively lower as we get back in time, we’d still talk about several thousand Gt C (around 3-3.5) since the industrial revolution.
And then the accounting problems start: The net source isn’t the oceans, because we’ve measured an increase in dissolved inorganic carbon (and there is too little dissolved organic carbon in there for that to be the source). It isn’t vegetation, or there’d be no more vegetation. It isn’t soil, because there’d be no more carbon in the soil. So, where’s that source that Harde and Salby and Berry etc conclude must exist? A little bit from everything still doesn’t cut it. Volcanoes? Gee, another problem in getting that to go up to the required amount (it really is a lot of CO2 – we’re talking 10% of Deccan trap-like levels of emissions, but in a much shorter time period). And besides, what made volcanoes suddenly spew so much more CO2 in the air, and so happily in tune with anthropogenic emissions?
If they would argue that the oceans are the source, but it’s from the deep oceans somewhere, where good DIC measurements are lacking, we still lack a credible sink. Sure, vegetation may have increased, but we’d have to talk about an increase of many factors to get to the required thousands of Gt carbon that needs to be taken up. We would have noticed that. Soil could potentially be easier to ‘sell’ as the sink, as it is more difficult to measure an increase in carbon content in the soil by about a factor 2-3 or so. That lacks a mechanism, though.
Neither Hermann Harde nor Ed Berry seems to have read and understood the two seminal papers by Revelle and Suess (1957) and Bolin and Eriksson (1959). Harde has not cited any of those papers. Although Berry cites Revelle and Suess he is not aware of why this paper is so important. Perhaps someone should recommend Harde and Berry to study more climate science. A good beginning could be Spencer Weart’s“The Discovery of Global Warming”
Spencer Weart, in that work, has written about the importance of the two papers Revelle and Suess (1957) and Bolin and Eriksson (1959) in the following essay with the title “Roger Revelle’s Discovery”:
https://history.aip.org/climate/Revelle.htm
The introduction of this fairly detailed essay is :
At the end of Weart’s text the importance of Bolin and Eriksson (1959) is described:
It is rather impressing that Bolin and Eriksson in 1959 predicted that the rise of carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere could be 25 % in the year 2000 compared to 1880. Carbon dioxide had risen to 369 ppm in 2000. Assuming that it was 300 ppm in 1880 that is a 23 % rise:
ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt
“Perhaps someone should recommend Harde and Berry to study more climate science.”
Yeah…people have. They just dig in more. Remember that both seem to come from a position that mainstream climate science is wrong, hence no need to understand the scientific papers by mainstream scientists.
FWIW at Retraction watch, Prof Harde writes:
At least Prof. Harde agrees that the natural carbon cycle is a net carbon sink. However it seems to me to require some cognitive dissonance to accept that the natural carbon cycle takes more CO2 out of the atmosphere than it puts in, but at the same time to believe that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is a natural phenomenon.
…and Then There’s Physics, you said in one of your previous comments here that:
“I don’t know if anyone is going to bother with that one.”
You were referring to whether anyone would bother with this trite “paper” from Harde and published in a predatory journal:
“Radiation transfer calculations and assessment of global warming by CO2”
Well, I think someone should write a formal comment or rebuttal to that paper, since Knutti et al. cited that “paper” in their recent review of climate sensitivity estimates:
“Beyond equilibrium climate sensitivity”, figure 2 on page 4
https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo3017
FWIW Murry Salby responds to Köhler here:
Pretty much packs all of the climate skeptic carbon cycle myths into one “convenient” 90min talk. The above link is about where the stuff about Harde’s paper starts.
Dr Berry has come up with a refined version of his carbon cycle theory, that you can find in this preprint : https://edberry.com/blog/climate/climate-physics/human-co2-has-little-effect-on-the-carbon-cycle/
Although I am not a scientist but just an engineer, he seems to show some very good points highlighting those that seem evident errors in the IPCC human carbon cycle. Despite some attempts made by a few physicists (including the swiss professor Aegerter) to rebut his findings, he has been able to brilliantly answer (in my view) to all of them. My view is that his arguments are looking quite more convincing than those against him (at least from what I have read so far).
Since he looks an open minded and respectful person, I recommend that those that know these matters better than me, should challenge Dr Berry directly in his blog/website, as others have already made.
Massimo,
I have interacted with Ed Berry before and don’t have much interest in doing so again. His arguments are clearly wrong. There is no question that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is anthropogenic. The ocean PH levels are going down, which means the ocean is taking up more CO2 than its emitting. The biosphere, similarly, is taking up more than its emitting. Hence, neither the oceans nor the biosphere can be the source of the rise in atmospheric CO2. The only source for which the emissions exceed the uptake is human emissions (i.e., we emit CO2 but don’t sequester any). There is really no point in debating this with someone who doesn’t get this very basic issue.
I tried to have a discussion with Berry, but he is not able to accept that his theory is contradicted by the observations. The simplest is that if the natural environment were a net source of CO2 into the atmosphere, then the rate at which atmospheric CO2 were rising would be faster than the rate of anthropogenic emissions, because both nature and mankind would be contributing to the rise. However, that is not what we observe – the average annual increase in atmospheric CO2 is only about half the rate of anthropogenic emissions (fossil fuel use and land use change emissions). That establishes that the natural environment is a net carbon sink and hence is opposing the atmospheric rise, rather than causing it. The uncertainty in the data is way to low to cast any substantive doubt on that analysis. See
I have raised this on Berry’s blog here. Note that his response does not address in any way the criticism that I made and just tries to change the subject. When I pointed out his repeated evasion of the point I raised, he resorted to ad-hominem attacks:
“Now that I see you are a “computer scientist” and not a physicist, I better understand your problem. You simply do not understand physics well enough to understand climate physics … but you attempt to play physics anyway. …”
I also pointed out here how he had misrepresented my work. Again, his response did not address my criticism.
That post did give me a laugh though, where he wrote
Which is hilarious. My paper is of no importance whatsoever for the “IPCC theory”, it is just setting out some basic concepts that anybody working on the carbon cycle should understand and was written purely to address some misundestandings that have been promulgated by skeptics in the public debate on climate. It has precisely zero novel scientific content, and was never intended to be otherwise!
Sadly this particular issue (i.e. the rise in CO2 is natural) is a strong indicator that someone is not reachable by rational scientific discussion, because the evidence that the rise is anthropogenic is conclusive (beyond reasonable doubt). Unfortunately nothing can be established beyond unreasonable doubt. I agree with climate skeptic Fred Singer, that such arguments only serve to marginalise climate skeptics from the discussion (and also wastes everybody else’s time and energy as well – but perhaps that is a feature rather than a bug ;o)
“The simplest is that if the natural environment were a net source of CO2 into the atmosphere, then the rate at which atmospheric CO2 were rising would be faster than the rate of anthropogenic emissions, because both nature and mankind would be contributing to the rise. ”
…unless there suddenly, and at the same time as anthropogenic sources of CO2 became substantial, has emerged a magical sink that has started taking up *massive* amounts of CO2. I once calculated that this sink must have taken up 1500 (IIRC) gigatons of CO2 more than it emitted over the same time period, if natural sources were the predominant contributor to CO2 rise (90%-10%, I think I took as assumptions of natural vs anthropogenic).
That would have more than halved the amount of CO2 in the upper ocean layers, if it were the upper ocean layer that was the source.
“unless there suddenly, and at the same time as anthropogenic sources of CO2 became substantial, has emerged a magical sink that has started taking up *massive* amounts of CO2.”
It is only meaningful to consider the net effect of natural sources and sinks together and the net effect of anthropogenic sources and sinks (negligible) together. If I want to know whether I am causing my bank balance to rise or fall, I need to look at the net of my deposits and withdrawals. If a magic sink appeared, that would still be the natural carbon cycle opposing the rise in atmospheric CO2.
I agree, Dikran, but it can be fun to ask all those who claim the oceans are the source to explain what sink must then have increased by so much, and how this fits with the measurements.
Yes, they only know about *half* of Henry’s law ;o)
Thanks guys, appreciated your explanation and respectful discussion.
Max, no problem. Has it changed your view of Berry’s theory? The line of evidence I suggest is more than sufficient to demonstrate that it is incorrect.
I should add there are several other in my paper on the topic (which Berry references and misrepresents), you can find a free pre-print here.
Gavin C. Cawley, On the atmospheric residence time of anthropogenically sourced carbon dioxide, Energy & Fuels, volume 25, number 11, pages 5503–5513, September 2011 (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ef200914u)
Here is a very good summary.
Thanks Gavin,
all look very interesting.
But : reading your linked articles, and then re-reading Berry’s remarks on each single alleged “line of evidence”, I honestly find it difficult to think that Berry may have misinterpreted or circumvented anything. Rather, my impression is that he has perfectly understood where the key points (and tricks) are. My humble view is that IPCC human CO2 model is a mathematical artefact with major physics flaws. Trying to support an assumption (even one that looks sensible and reasonable) by skewing physics laws is never a good idea. But, as I said, I’m just a M.Sc. in mechanical engineering and not a climate scientist. Time will tell.
Max Polo, I encourage you to read “Principles of Planetary Climate” by Ray Pierrehumbert.
Max,
Maybe consider this a little. There are essentially 3 reservoirs that contain CO2, the oceans, the biosphere, and the atmosphere. For a long time prior to the industrial revolution the atmospheric CO2 concentrations were roughly constant. We also know that the oceans and the biosphere emit and take up quite a lot of CO2. That the atmospheric CO2 concentrations were constant tells us that the fluxes must have been in balance. In other words, the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere from the oceans matched the amount being taken up by the oceans, and the amount being emitted by the biosphere matched the amount being taken up by the biosphere.
Now, we came alone and started to burn fossil fuels, emitting CO2 into the atmosphere. However, we’re only a source of CO2, there is no human uptake of CO2. So, when we started emitting we pushed the natural carbon cycle out of balance. No longer did all the fluxes balance, which meant that atmospheric CO2 started to rise. However, it’s actually rising slower than our emissions. So, at least some of what we’re emitting is going somewhere. It’s going into the oceans and into the biosphere. You can even see evidence for this in the form of the ocean pH levels dropping, and greening of the land biosphere.
So, if the rise is not anthropogenic, we have a real problem. Somehow, all of what we’re emitting is being taken up by one of the natural sinks while one of these sinks has suddenly also become a source of CO2. This doesn’t really make much sense; how can a natural sink be both a sink of CO2 and a source? I actually can’t even really construct a plausible argument that would illustrate this (it really doesn’t make much sense).
There are also plenty of other lines of evidence. Whatever is emitting the CO2 is rich in C12, but poor in C14. This tells us it’s biological, but old (fossils). There’s a corresponding decline in atmospheric oxygen, which suggests combustion, not volcanoes.
You can read more about the various lines of evidence here.
Maybe I should not be doing this, but…
“I’m just a M.Sc. in mechanical engineering…”
Why am I not surprised?
Max. If the natural environment is not a net sink, how do you (or Berry) explain the observed fact that atmospheric CO2 levels are rising more slowly than the rate of anthropogenic emissions. This is not a rhetorical question.
Dikran, I am not sure to have understood what you mean. I do not think this is what Berry is saying (however, better would be asking him – theory is not mine).
Quoting: IPCC also claims nature has been a “net carbon sink” since 1750, so nature could not have caused the observed rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Of course, nature is a “net carbon sink” because nature absorbs human CO2 emissions. But absorption of human CO2 does not prevent nature from increasing its own CO2 emissions because inflow and outflow are two different processes.
Then there’s Physics : obviously the human inflow alters the nature balance. This is what also Berry finds. The problem is by what amount. The way Berry calculates such amount, doesn’t differentiate between nature and human CO2 molecules. Absorption rates are calculated in the same manner for human and natural CO2, reproducing the physical mechanism described by the Henry’s law. On the other side, the Bern model creates this “artifact formula” just for the poor human molecules, that are condemned to stick to the atmosphere forever (at least part of them). Why ? Because otherwise its initial hypothesis (= all the increase of CO2 is due to humans) would fall down. This is why I talked of skewing the laws of physics. But then, I am not an expert, and as Marco noted, I may be wrong. Rather than challenging me, you should challenge Dr Berry. This is why I posted in this forum.
Max Berry, just ignore the confused Dr. Berry.
Instead study whatever parts of the extensive online “The Discovery of Global Warming” by Spencer Weart capture your attention. Weart is correct, Berry is not.
Max,
I don’t actually understand what you or Berry are really claiming. The Bern model doesn’t – as far as I’m aware – have some kind of “artifact model” for just the human molecules. I don’t even know what this means. Just to clarify something, that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is entirely anthropogenic does not mean that every single molecule in that enhancement is from an anthropogenic source. The molecules that we emit cycle through the different reservoirs just like all the other CO2 molecules. What it means is that atmospheric CO2 would not be rising in the absence of our emissions.
Max, let’s take a few small steps at a time:
“But absorption of human CO2 does not prevent nature from increasing its own CO2 emissions because inflow and outflow are two different processes.”
The point Dikran makes, and Berry and many others (you included) ignore, is that natural increases in CO2 emissions MUST be compensated by natural increases in CO2 uptake, or otherwise the CO2 in the atmosphere would rise *faster* than the anthropogenic contribution, not at half the rate. It is really that simple, and I’ll illustrate that with an example that many can relate to a lot easier, as it is about money flows:
Supposed you get a 2000 euro net salary per month. Your monthly expenses are also 2000 euro. What does your account show over a year? A flat line, no increase nor decrease. Now someone, let’s take an old friend, decides to give you 100 euro a month. What happens? Unless you increase your spending, your account will show, after a year, a surplus of 1200 euro. 100% of the extra money on your account is due to your old friend giving you money. What would happen to your account if you get a raise of 100 euro on top of your friend giving you 100 euro? Your account now increases at 2400 euro a year, 200% of the contribution of your old friend. The only way to get your account to increase by only 50% of your friend’s contribution is to increase your spending. In the case of just your friend contribution, you’d be spending 2050 euro a month, in the case of your old friend’s contribution + the salary increase, you’d need to spend 2150 euro a month. Notice how no matter what, your spending is LARGER than your salary?
Although ATTP already points it out, I’ll repat: the Bern model does NOT treat anthropogenic CO2 any different from any other CO2 molecule. It just takes into account that exchange rates are interrelated. Let’s take a very simplistic Gedankenexperiment: we inject a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere, giving an instantaneous doubling. This higher partial CO2 pressure means the oceans will take up a lot of that CO2. Let’s say 50% and let’s say again this is instantaneous. In the new equilibrium, the rate of ocean out = ocean in. Now say there is a slower process that removes CO2 from the surface (exchange) layer of the ocean into the deeper ocean. This means CO2 concentrations in the surface layer decrease, and thus more atmospheric CO2 is taken up (as ocean out < ocean in). But since this decreases atmospheric CO2, ocean in reduces. And so the process goes on, with constantly altering exchange rates.
And regarding challenging Berry, Dikran already pointed out he tried to have a civilized discussion with Berry on this, but got bullied away.
Max, you need to read the paper. The natural sinks don’t just take up human emissions, they take up natural emissions as well. The total uptake by natural sinks of atmospheric CO2 is greater than total emissions of CO2 not the atmosphere. We know that because the rate of atmospheric rise is less than the rate of anthropogenic emissions. Somebody with an msc in mechanical engineering should be able to understand conservation of mass.
Max as others have said, the Bern model does not differentiate between anthropogenic and natural CO2. Sources and sinks may have isotopic preferences, but there is no way for nature to distinguish one sourace from another. Berry may claim that it does, but that is because of his lack of understanding of carbon cycle modelling and his resistance to correction.
Max, do you agree that CO2 in the atmosphere obeys conservation of mass, i.e. any CO2 that is emitted into the atmosphere that isn’t taken out of the atmosphere stays in the atmosphere? Yes, or no.
Marco, on the “bank account analogy” : to better represent the physical reality (assuming Berry is right), the “bank account model” should be modified as follows : (1) from a certain time, the income starts to become slightly greater than the (initial) spending (to represent the natural warming, see my further post), (2) spending is always proportional to the amount of money in your account (i.e. such amount represents the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, that drives the outflow toward the other reservoirs). Then you get (more or less) Berry’s “Physics model”.
Marco, the Bomb Test fits well your description of the Gedankenexperiment. The problem is, if we apply the Bern model to the (human generated) 14CO2 concentration data, we obtain that 15% of the initial CO2 should stay in the atmosphere forever. Data show that this did not occur. Rather, the residence time stayed pretty constant over a large span of decades. Let me add that I find it hard to believe that CO2 is the only gas in nature that allegedly shows such a weird behavior with variable residence time (per the ammission in Cawley’s paper “unlike the other atmospheric gases, the residence time and the adjustment time are not the same for CO2”).
Dikran, obviously I agree on CO2 mass conservation. Let me see if I’m able to explain it, starting from Berry’s paper results, and the relevant gas absorption mechanism. In 270 years humans have produced 452 GtC (cumulative) of CO2. If you believe Berry, only 67 GtC (32 ppm) have remained in the atmosphere as of today (2019). The most part has been absorbed by the other reservois (ground/land 166 GtC, surface ocean 48 GtC, deep ocean 171 GtC). The increased CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has driven the uptake by the other reservoirs. So obviously the total mass emitted by humans in conserved (67+166+48+171=452). The balance CO2 increase in the atmosphere to achieve 410 ppm is 98 ppm (= 410 – 280 – 32) and comes from nature. This can be explained by the transfer of CO2 mass from the other reservoirs to the atmosphere, as a result of the increase in water/land temperature (natural warming). One of the mechanisms involved, is the reduction of solubility of carbon dioxide in the water due to the temperature increase. In other words, the temperature increase makes the equilibrium possible only at higher CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Think of it as a two-phase process (even if such phases are simultaneous) : first, temperature increase reduces CO2 solubility, transferring mass from water/land to air in a new equilibrium at higher atmospheric concentration. Second, CO2 from burning fossil fuels furtherly increases its concentration in the air. This drives CO2 mass back into the water/land until a new partial pressure balance is reached. Simple thermodynamics, not fancy science. The final equilibrium (2019) is represented by the above figures (assuming IPCC natural carbon cycle data are right, and that Berry model – that starts from such data – is correct). Anyways, if you don’t agree, I encourage you to challenge the author of this theory, not myself. He must be in a better position to provide an answer (if he can).
Final “common sense” consideration (unscientific, for what it’s worth…) : in 1750, the atmosphere held a minuscule portion (1.4%) of the total CO2 on earth. Then human started burning fossil fuels, emitting (as of 2019) into the atmosphere a further 1% of the total CO2 on earth. Do you really believe that a large portion (almost half) of this 1% would remain sticked to the atmosphere (as IPCC claim), instead of being absorbed elsewhere (as the 98.6% of CO2 does) ?
Max Polo, you would do far better to occupy yourself reading “The Global Warming Papers” edited by Archer & Pierrehumbert.
Max,
Yes, but this is because you’re not taking into account the different isotopic compositions in the different reservoirs. The bomb test added C14 to the atmosphere. C14 was depleted in the oceans and biosphere. When C14 is taken up by the ocean or biosphere, it would typically be replaced by a C that isn’t C14. Hence, if you track only the C14 decay, it will suggest a much shorter timescale than if you considered all the isotopes.
Max. I am walking you through a proof that Berry is wrong. It will be faster if I don’t have to address all of Berry’s misconceptions along the way (even the first element of which was incorrect), that will just confuse the issue.
So you agree that the carbon cycle obeys conservation of mass. That can be written algebraically as
dC = En + Ea – Un
where En is the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere over some time period (lets say a year), Un is the amount of CO2 taken out of the atmosphere (regardless of its initial source – physics has no way of determining whether the CO2 entered the atmosphere from anthropogenic or natural sources), Ea is the amount of CO2 emitted by anthropogenic sources (I’ve left anthropogenic uptake, e.g. carbon capture and storage, because it is entirely negligible) and dC is the resulting change in atmospheric CO2.
Do you agree with that?
Oops, “Un is the amount of CO2 taken out of the atmosphere” should be “Un is the amount of CO2 taken out of the atmosphere by natural sinks”
(“per the ammission in Cawley’s paper “unlike the other atmospheric gases, the residence time and the adjustment time are not the same for CO2”).”
The paper explains why they are not the same, residence time is short for CO2 because of the large exchange fluxes that rapidly move molecules of CO2 from one reservoir to another. However that exchange flux is independent of the rate of rise and fall in atmospheric CO2 levels, which is governed by the adjustment time. Adjustment time and residence time for most other gasses are the same because those gasses don’t have large exchange fluxes.
Max,
Dikran is correct, of course.
To convince you you need to apply yourself to follow his arguments consider this:
The CO2 rise is unprecedented in a million years of ice core data, and exactly corresponds to the industrial revolution (The rise is nearly exactly proportional to emissions).
For this to be natural, it requires an entirely unknown new source of natural CO2 to be emitting at a rising rate exactly proportional to human emissions.
This does not seem likely. Ergo, apply yourself to Dikran’s arguments. I can assure you, as a fellow of an engineering institution, your professional background is an aid, not a block to your progress.
Indeed – I have a background in engineering as well. One basic physical principle (conservation of mass, to which Max has already agreed), a bit of algebra (which I have set out) and some reliable observations. None of that is beyond someone with an engineering background. If Max can find a flaw in any step I set out, we can discuss them before moving onto the next one.
Hmm… better sized image
mods, feel free to replace the above if you have time and inclination
Dear David B. Benson
it’s good that you care how I should occupy myself. Your advice on what I should read will be taken under due consideration.
Dear Verytallguy
does correlation mean necessarily that there is a cause-effect relation ? Furthermore : I am not a statistician, but I understand that a proper statistical analysis should be “detrended” to determine whether there is an actual statistical correlation between two curves. I have seen more than one study doing this and seriously questioning that such statistical correlation actually exists.
Dear “Then There is Physics”
12C, 13C and 14C carbon isotopes should undergo the same chemical reactions, but the rates that isotopes react can differ. Because 12CO2 is a lighter molecule than 14CO2, it should react faster than 14CO2. Therefore I would think that 12CO2 e-time should be shorter than the 14CO2 e-time. In addition, the actual concentration of CO2 in the water is so much lower than saturation concentration that I really cannot see how e-time of CO2 could be affected.
Dear Dikran
on surface, your mass conservation equation seems all right. But at a closer look it hides a logic flaw with a wrong starting assumption. This can be shown by breaking up the process in two phases.
First phase : there are no humans, therefore the increase / decrease in atmospheric CO2 concentration only depends on natural inflow and outflow (respectively En and Un) :
DCn = En – Un
DCn can be positive, negative, or zero, as we have seen in various periods of the ancient history.
Second phase : the humans arrive, and start emitting into the atmosphere. You are capturing this fact by throwing in the term Ea into the right hand side of your equation :
DC = En – Un + Ea
Remember that what is in the right hand side of the equation REMAINS in the atmosphere. This means that the difference of concentration in the atmosphere between “nature-with-humans” and “nature-only” is simply :
DC – DCn = Ea
or, according to your equation, the net addition of humans LEFT IN THE ATMOSPHERE is the entire amount Ea ; but this is against the objective evidence that says that what is left in the atmosphere is less than Ea, i.e. f*Ea, where f is the “airborne fraction” (portion of human emissions that remain in the atmosphere). Under your wrong assumption, it’s obvious that you will always be getting a “very negative” difference En – Un, but this is because you are imposing something that cannot be true. Your equation wrongly assumes airborne fraction is always 1.
To represent what really happens, your mass conservation equation needs to be modified as follows :
DC – f*Ea = En – Un
that also gives another way to see at the airborne fraction f :
f = DC/Ea – (En – Un)/Ea
f = 0.45 – (En – Un)/Ea
showing how the airborne fraction is not necessarily 0.45 (or whatever the ratio DC/Ea is) but can be altered by the natural net intake in the atmosphere DCn/Ea.
Max,
I don’t think you’re getting my point about the carbon isotopes. Initially, the bomb test added C14 to the atmosphere. This is then taken up by the other reservoirs (biosphere and ocean). However, there is also a flux out of these reservoirs. Since they’re depleted in C14, the flux out is dominated by C12 and C13. Hence, if you track the C14 abundance in the atmosphere, you’re more tracking the residence time of a molecule (years) than the adjustment timescale of an enhancement in atmospheric CO2 (centuries).
Max, you may want to read Dikran’s paper (i.e. Gavin Cawley’s paper). You will find out that ‘his’ mass balance does not say what you claim it says. Dikran also makes this very clear in his comments here. Just to cite one part: “We know that because the rate of atmospheric rise is less than the rate of anthropogenic emissions.”
Let us take again the equation you yourself write:
DC = En – Un + Ea
Contrary to your claim, it does *not* mean that DC = Ea. It’s merely the relation between the three factors
What we know, as you yourself indicate, is that
DC = f*Ea
In other words
En – Un = f*Ea – Ea = (1-f)*Ea
This automatically means that En < Un. In fact
Un = En – (f-1)*Ea
Ergo, the natural uptake is larger than the natural emissions. This is the whole mass balance argument: as long as f is at the very least between 0 and 1, En < Un.
You write later that:
DC – f*Ea = En – Un.
But that equation is only correct if DC = 0 or f=1 !
"showing how the airborne fraction is not necessarily 0.45 (or whatever the ratio DC/Ea is) but can be altered by the natural net intake in the atmosphere DCn/Ea."
Actually, what you are showing is that if you redefine f as meaning something else than the airborne fraction, while putting in the number for f if you define it as DC/Ea, you get a different f, which is not the airborne fraction.
Quite the creative maths there…
Max,
I would read Marco’s comment carefully. I think you have indeed made some assumptions in your analysis that aren’t actually correct.
Well, I actually need to make one correction:
“You write later that:
DC – f*Ea = En – Un.
But that equation is only correct if DC = 0 or f=1 !”
That last sentence should read “But that the equation is only correct if Ea = 0 or f=1 !”
Dear Then There is Physics
I think I’m probably getting your point, but what I find very hard to believe, is that there is any credible physics able to justify two different response times for the same gas (residence time of a molecule, and adjustment timescale of an enhancement). Mass transfer and gas diffusion processes that I studied a long ago did not work like this. And CO2 seems to be the only gas that shows this behavior (“unlike many other gases…”). I could understand more easily this phenomenon, if we had reached any saturation concentration of CO2 in the water or land. But it does not look like this is the case. Of course I may be wrong.
Max, read my paper. The residence time is short because there are vast exchange fluxes that regularly shuffle individual molecules between reservoirs in the carbon cycle. However these vast exchange fluxes don’t tell you anything about the rate at which CO2 levels rise and fall. That depends on the difference between total uptake and total emissions. The residence time only depends on total uptake (as residence time is the mass of the atmospheric CO2 divided by the rate of uptake).
Dear Marco
instead of going thru the “creative math”, I’ll try to show you where (I think) your logic error is. Maybe this works better.
“ f ” is – by definition – “the ratio of the human carbon in the atmosphere to the total human emitted carbon”.
Let me start with this : you should be able to recognize that this definition is not the same as saying that f = DC/HE, because you cannot know “a-priori” what the cause of the measured DC is. I hear you say : no, no, I do know for certain that DC is entirely human. It’s because nature cannot emit, nature is a net sink. I deduce this, from the fact that otherwise you would measure DC > HE. Since this is not the case, it must be that DC = f*HE (= all human, no “natural” contribution).
OK ?
Not OK : here is where logic fails. This argument only stands if HE remains in the atmosphere. If a part of HE is taken out of the atmosphere, then this reduces DC that may become < HE, in which case your argument does not work. Now, since evidence says that a good part of HE is removed from the atmosphere, then your deduction is not valid. The relation DC = f*HE is not proven. It’s based on a subtle, but fundamental, logic flaw. Therefore you cannot use it in the mass conservation equation, otherwise math becomes indeed creative.
“Remember that what is in the right hand side of the equation REMAINS in the atmosphere. This means that the difference of concentration in the atmosphere between “nature-with-humans” and “nature-only” is simply :
DC – DCn = Ea”
O.K. so you have defined DCn = E_n – U_n. Fine. We know that DC is smaller than Ea. We know that because we have reliable measurements of atmospheric CO2 and we have sufficiently good estimates of anthropogenic emissions (e.g. extraction, sales and use data).
That means that DCn must be negative. That is just algebra. So we know that Un > En (as both must be positive) thus we know that total atmospheric uptake by all natural sinks is greater than total atmospheric emissions by all natural sources. Thus we know that the natural environment is a net carbon sink and has been opposing the rise, not causing it.
“he net addition of humans LEFT IN THE ATMOSPHERE is the entire amount Ea ;” no, it doesn’t assume any such thing. The amount of anthropogenic emissions that are not taken out of the atmosphere by the net natural sink is left in the atmosphere (SHOUTING DOESN@T MAKE YOUR ARGUMENT ANY MORE CONVINCING).
“DC – f*Ea = En – Un”
This is just nonsense. The reason that the airborne fraction is less than one is because En-Un is negative, i.e. the natural environment is a net carbon sink that is taking up about half the CO2 we emit. That is carbon cycle 101 stuff.
So that equation is double counting the net natural sink.
Max. If I take a molecule of 14CO2 out of the atmosphere and replace it with a molecule of 12CO2, has the amount of 14CO2 fallen? Has the amount of CO2 fallen?
“showing how the airborne fraction is not necessarily 0.45 ”
you really should read my paper. The mass balance analysis makes no assumption whatsoever about the airborne fraction. It is just your straw man. The reason we have an apprximately constant airborne fraction in the first place is because anthropogenic emissions are rising approximately exponentially and the carbon cycle is dominated by its first order response on short timescales. There is a section explaining that in my paper as well.
Dikran, you claim that the rate at which CO2 levels rise and fall depends on the difference between the total uptake and emissions, and I think this is no different concept than what expressed by Berry’s continuities equations. But what is driving the total uptake / emission rates ? In Berry’s model the driving force is the concentration in the reservoirs, and what “slows it down” is the e-time of the reservoirs. But it does not re-define e-time based on the timescale of the process. This is in line with the typical mass transfer calculations is the gas/chemical processes. Timescale of the process is not a factor.
Max,
I haven’t had time to read all the comments, but you need to bear in mind that the airborne fraction is defined as the enhancement in atmospheric CO2 relative to pre-industry, divided by how much we’ve emitted. It’s essentially a measurement.
By the way I didnt mean to shout…only to underline what I thought was important. Sorry I have to leave for a while for a business trip…thanks for your time. Discussion for me is good to learn things. Please challenge Berry, not me 🙂
Max I note that your reply does not address the point that I raised, which is that residence time doesn’t depend on total emissions, only total uptake. Do you accept that, yes or no?
Then There is Physics, thanks for pointing out what the true definition of airborne fraction is. I thought (reading from Wikipedia) it was different. So by definition f = DC/HE. But then, airborn fraction is not necessarily all-human for the reason I explained in my earlier post. When I am back I’ll need to revise some of my earlier statements. All the best, Max
Max, I may have mentioned this before, but you should try reading my paper. It explains why only a small percentage of atmospheric CO2 is directly from anthropogenic emissions, even though anthropogenic emissions are responsible for all of the post-industrial excess. The reason is the vast exchange fluxes that I keep talking about.
Dikran, I do not know how to answer to your question. My understanding of residence time is that it’s a fixed physical quantity associated to a reservoir. It’s what slows down the mass transfer process. Cheers,
Max, I’ve already given you the definition of residence time. It is given in my paper. It is given in the IPCC reports. It is the ratio of the mass of atmospheric CO2 and the rate of uptake.
Do you agree that residence time does not depend on the emission rate, but only on the uptake rate, yes or no?
CO2 is not the only gas that shows this behavior. However, of the important greenhouse gases, it is the only one that shows this behavior. For gases like methane and N2O their lifetime is governed primarily by chemical degradation, not by distribution into other reservoirs, as is the case with CO2. As the lifetime is governed by degradation, so is the ‘adjustment time’. For CO2 the lifetime is governed by the distribution into different reservoirs, whereas the ‘adjustment time’ is governed by the, somewhat simplisticly described, storage of CO2 in a form that does not rapidly exchanges. That’s especially the storage of CO2 in the form of calciumcarbonate on the ocean floor.
Perhaps Max can understand the difference between lifetime and adjustment time a bit better when considering two connected containers filled with water. Let container A be much bigger than B. Now add some water-soluble dye to container B. You’ll see the concentration of dye in B slowly drop, allowing one to calculate a lifetime of the dye in container B. But the concentration of the dye in B will never ever reach zero. You’ll need some active process that removes the dye (e.g., a chemical degradation process) to get it back down to zero. Without that process, the adjustment time is infinite. If the chemical degradation is very fast, it’s that degradation that determines the lifetime of the dye in container B. If it is very slow, it is the exchange rate of the solutions that determines the lifetime in container B, and the degradation rate that determines the adjustment time.
I duly submit that this exchange is past its diminishing returns.
It has been for years, I wish I’d never written the bloody paper (as I now feel an obligation to discuss it). I naively thought it might help skeptics avoid making a fool of themselves by with arguments that were obviously wrong, but for that they would at least need to actually read it and/or care whether the argument was valid or not.
[The thread necromancy has run its course, Max. Thanks. -W]