THE amount of two key greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere rose sharply in 2007, and carbon dioxide levels this year are literally off the chart, the US government reported today.
In its annual index of greenhouse gas emissions, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found atmospheric carbon dioxide rose by 0.6 per cent, or 19 billion tonnes last year.
The amount of methane increased by 0.5 per cent, or 27 million tonnes, after nearly a decade of little or no change, according preliminary figures to scientists at the government's Earth System Research Laboratory in Colorado.
News.com.au:Carbon dioxide levels 'off the chart'
Folks. We have a problem!! From 2005 until this year global production, and use, of crude oil leveled off so there isn't more CO2 from oil. China is putting more CO2 from coal into the air, but other countries are moving to wind and solar, so I would guess CO2 originating from coal should be about level. If those two primary sources of CO2 are leveling, where can the increases be coming from. Did I read an increase of 19 million metric tons. There can't be an increase without a source for that increase.
I'm not sure about where you are but here in Huntsville, AL (home of UAH and Dr. John Christy), we're having one amazingly pleasant August. Sure, the temperature might spike to 105 humid degrees next week, but that's exactly what we would expect for this time of year. Instead we've had very cool, rainy days mixed in with relatively arid, pleasantly warm days.
The rest of the world should look at today's SE USA weather with extreme envy.
And I'd love to know what our temps have to do with spiking CO2 levels.
There are only two deniers to consider; the global temperature record and the CO2 concentration record.
The global temperature record shows cooling on average since 2002. The CO2 record shows an increase over the same time period.
The two curves correlate with a negative correlation co efficient indicating that increases in CO2 cause cooling or there is no correlation of CO2 with global temperature.
Global cooling ended in 1975 and global warming hysteria was based on the positive correlation of CO2 with the increasing global temperature over a similar time frame to the negative correlation today.
If this is all it takes to justify global warming lunacy this should be all it takes to stop it
"...the origin of the sharp rise in CO2 during the 1998 spring growth period" SHOULD be "the origin of the sharp rise in CO2 at the start of the 1998 spring growth".
Ian: I think both your reading and your interpretation of the CO2 data are off the mark. I’ve downloaded the data (daily, monthly, annual average, and seasonally adjusted) from the NOAA site and I’m having trouble reconciling your data with theirs.
First, to reiterate my point to Ian Castles, the NOAA news release was about GLOBAL data, not Mauna Loa data. Your post also appears to relate to Mauna Loa (?) data. At least, if we are going to talk about northern hemisphere sinks, it is best to use northern hemisphere CO2 data.
But what do the Mauna Loa data indicate? You claim the 1997 trough was 360.19, while the following peak was 366.79. OK, my inspection of the Mauna Loa monthly (unsmoothed) averages shows 360.06 in September, only slightly different from your value. However, the following fall-winter peak is shown as 369.33 ppm. This is an increase of >9 ppm, and is somewhat greater than the increase (of about 7ppm) shown in the corresponding periods in the preceding three years of data. The 1998 Mauna Loa trough was 363.83, or a decrease of 5.5 ppm from the preceding peak, and is only slightly less than that seen in the previous two years (where it was 5.6 and 6.4 ppm). Where do you draw your conclusion that “…the descent into the 1998 trough was less than half the normal scale, down only 2.89ppm to 366.90ppm”? There seems to me no way that your numbers can be reconciled with either the Mauna Loa or the global records. You also suggest, from the numbers you gave that the “.. trough to trough change from 1997 to 1998… showed a massive 3.71ppm reduction in the capacity of vegetation and oceans to absorb CO2.” It is questionable whether the oceans’ ability to absorb CO2 was affected significantly and adversely (and measurably) during this period. A paper by Battle et al. [1] indicates that the oceans’ uptake was not affected negatively during the period 1997-1998. According to Greenblatt & Sarmiento [2], the ENSO corresponds to higher than usual oceanic uptake of CO2: “…there is ample evidence for increased ocean uptake [of CO2] in El Nino years…” (p.261). A study by Bousquet et al. [3] of global carbon fluxes shows that 1998 was characterised by an anomalously large positive global land flux of CO2. Presumably, this is the origin of the sharp rise in CO2 during the 1998 spring growth period. So, what is the evidence for your claim that terrestrial sink uptake was reduced in 1998?
But what’s the issue, anyway? That Nature causes swings in CO2, above and beyond the seasonal ups and downs? It has been suspected for quite a long time that “natural” swings on CO2 levels of the order of 10 ppm occur. (See Oeschger and Stauffer, "Review of the history of atmospheric CO2 recorded in ice cores", The changing carbon cycle; a global analysis, Springer, 1986, pp.89-108.)
[1] M. Battle, M. L. Bender, P. P. Tans, J. W. C. White, J. T. Ellis, T. Conway, & R. J. Francey, Global Carbon Sinks and Their Variability Inferred from Atmospheric O2 and 13C, Science, 287, 2467 (2000)
[2] Jeffery B. Greenblatt and Jorge L. Sarmiento, Variability and Climate Feedback Mechanisms in Ocean Uptake of CO2, Chapter 13 in The Global Carbon Cycle (ed. C.B. Filed and M.R. Raupach, SCOPE, Island Press, 2004)
[3] Philippe Bousquet, Philippe Peylin, Philippe Ciais, Corinne Le Quere, Pierre Friedlingstein, Pieter P. Tans, Regional Changes in Carbon Dioxide Fluxes of Land and Oceans Since 1980, Science, 290, 1342 (2000)
More importantly, why didn't NOAA make mention of the fact that the highest annual increment on CO2 was the 1998 El Nino with 3ppm. But this is only part of the story, the annual peaks and troughs reveal much more.
The trough of 1997 was only 360.19ppm and this marked the end of the northern hemisphere growing (CO2 absorbing) season. The following peak was 366.79ppm (6.60ppm change) which was a normal northern winter event when absorption by vegetation is minimal and both natural and human emissions accumulate.
But the descent into the 1998 trough was less than half the normal scale, down only 2.89ppm to 366.90ppm which is the direct consequence of reduced vegetative growth in the drought. This was not caused by any increase in human emissions because it all took place within a six month period.
Indeed, the ascent to the following peak was only slightly less than normal, with an increase of 5.39ppm to 369.29ppm. The critical numbers to note from this data is the trough to trough change from 1997 to 1998 which showed a massive 3.71ppm reduction in the capacity of vegetation and oceans to absorb CO2.
This 3.71ppm amounts to a massive 19.5Gt of CO2 that has become a permanent addition to the atmospheric gas composition. It is more than double the total volume of human emissions in the whole year. And it has not been corrected by growth in subsequent years. In effect, nature didn't show up for work that year and we have the extra CO2 to show for it.
Erratum: the link to ESRL was provided by Paul Biggs, not by Gavin.