You just took science and added speculation. CO2 accuentuates the temp increase? How... We just saw the data on Roy Spencer's chart... it looks very much like temp still forces CO2 accumulation. Repeat after me... Earth has very complicated systems. The Earth off gases CO2. In its history temp rising temps precede CO2 accumulation The rest is just guessing. The question could just as easily be... why is the earth not off gassing more CO2? Is it because of the temp increase? Or is something else the cause... Something which is the cause or part of the cycles of the earth.
Here we see a lot of guessing about recent CO2 effect but admission that the data shows CO2 lags temps. In fact the article said great climate scientists predicted the finding before they found it. They predicted the finding because in part the Ice sheet melt takes 10,000 years. So, the climate guys predict that CO2 accumulation lags by 1000 years. "What is being talked about here is influence of the seasonal radiative forcing change from the earthâs wobble around the sun (the well established Milankovitch theory of ice ages), combined with the positive feedback of ice sheet albedo (less ice = less reflection of sunlight = warmer temperatures) and greenhouse gas concentrations (higher temperatures lead to more CO2 leads to warmer temperatures). Thus, both CO2 and ice volume should lag temperature somewhat, depending on the characteristic response times of these different components of the climate system. Ice volume should lag temperature by about 10,000 years, due to the relatively long time period required to grow or shrink ice sheets. CO2 might well be expected to lag temperature by about 1000 years, which is the timescale we expect from changes in ocean circulation and the strength of the âcarbon pumpâ (i.e. marine biological photosynthesis) that transfers carbon from the atmosphere to the deep ocean. Several recent papers have indeed established that there is lag of CO2 behind temperature. We donât really know the magnitude of that lag as well as Barton implies we do, because it is very challenging to put CO2 records from ice cores on the same timescale as temperature records from those same ice cores, due to the time delay in trapping the atmosphere as the snow is compressed into ice (the ice at any time will always be younger older than the gas bubbles it encloses, and the age difference is inherently uncertain). Still, the best published calculations do show values similar to those quoted by Barton (presumably, taken from this paper by Monnin et al. (2001), or this one by Caillon et al. (2003)). But the calculations can only be done well when the temperature change is large, notably at glacial terminations (the gradual change from cold glacial climate to warm interglacial climate). Importantly, it takes more than 5000 years for this change to occur, of which the lag is only a small fraction (indeed, one recently submitted paper Iâm aware of suggests that the lag is even less than 200 years). So it is not as if the temperature increase has already ended when CO2 starts to rise. Rather, they go very much hand in hand, with the temperature continuing to rise as the the CO2 goes up. In other words, CO2 acts as an amplifier, just as Lorius, Hansen and colleagues suggested. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/ "
and here is a point about Gore vs. science. We cannot explain the temperature observations without CO2. But CO2 does not explain all of the change, and the relationship between temperature and CO2 is therefore by no means linear. That is, a given amount of CO2 increase as measured in the ice cores need not necessarily correspond with a certain amount of temperature increase. Gore shows the strong parallel relationship between the temperature and CO2 data from the ice cores, and then illustrates where the CO2 is now (384 ppm), leaving the viewerâs eye to extrapolate the temperature curve upwards in parallel with the rising CO2. Gore doesnât actually make the mistake of drawing the temperature curve, but the implication is obvious: temperatures are going to go up a lot. But as illustrated in the figure below, simply extrapolating this correlation forward in time puts the Antarctic temperature in the near future somewhere upwards of 10 degrees Celsius warmer than present â rather at the extreme end of the vast majority of projections (as we have http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/
and here is the total and complete kicker. temperature precedes the first thousand years of cooling. "Dear Jeff, I read your article âWhat does the lag of CO2 behind temperature in ice cores tell us about global warming?â You mention that CO2 does not initiate warmings, but may amplify warmings that are already underway. The obvious question comes up as to whether or not CO2 levels also lag periods when cooling begins after a warming cycleâ¦even one of 5,000 years? If CO2 levels on planet Earth also lag the cooling periods, then how can it be that CO2 levels are causally related to terrestrial heating periods at all? I am not sure what the ice core records are related the time response of CO2 to the cooling trends. If there is also a lag in CO2 levels behind a cooling period, then it appears that CO2 levels not only do not initiate warming periods but are also unrelated to the onset of cooling periods. It would appear that the actual CO2 levels are rather impotent as an amplifier either wayâ¦warming or cooling. We are talking about planet Earth after all and not Venus whose atmospheric pressure is many times larger than Earthâs. If there is also a time lag upon the onset of cooling, then it appears that some other mechanism actually drives the temperature changes. So what is the time difference between CO2 levels during the onset of a cooling period at the end of a warming period and the time history of the temperature changes in the ice cores? Dear John, The coolings appear to be caused primarily and initially by increase in the Earth-Sun distance during northern hemisphere summer, due to changes in the Earthâs orbit. As the orbit is not round, but elliptical, sunshine is weaker during some parts of the year than others. This is the so-called Milankovitch hypothesis [this really should say "theory" -- eric], which you may have heard about. Just as in the warmings, CO2 lags the coolings by a thousand years or so, in some cases as much as three thousand years. But do not make the mistake of assuming that these warmings and coolings must have a single cause. It is well known that multiple factors are involved, including the change in planetary albedo, change in nitrous oxide concentration, change in methane concentration, and change in CO2 concentration. I know it is intellectually satisfying to identify a single cause for some observed phenomenon, but that unfortunately is not the way Nature works much of the time. Nor is there any requirement that a single cause operate throughout the entire 5000 â year long warming trends, and the 70,000 year cooling trends. Thus it is not logical to argue that, because CO2 does not cause the first thousand years or so of warming, nor the first thousand years of cooling, it cannot have caused part of the many thousands of years of warming in between. Think of heart disease â one might be tempted to argue that a given heart patientâs condition was caused solely by the fact that he ate french fries for lunch every day for 30 years. But in fact his 10-year period of no exercise because of a desk job, in the middle of this interval, may have been a decisive influence. Just because a sedentary lifestyle did not cause the beginning of the plaque buildup, nor the end of the buildup, would you rule out a contributing causal role for sedentary lifestyle? There is a rich literature on this topic. If you are truly interested, I urge you to read up. The contribution of CO2 to the glacial-interglacial coolings and warmings amounts to about one-third of the full amplitude, about one-half if you include methane and nitrous oxide." http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-lag-between-temp-and-co2/
So CO2 trails temps in the first 1000 years and the last 1000 years. You guys are just screwing around with the middle.
I see this as pretty close to "chicken and egg, which came first?", which I think you've basically said here. It appears that climate has long moved about an equilibrium, with fluctuations created by rather small perturbations. I think it's reasonable to say that Man has become numerous enough, busy enough (24/7/365) to amount to a minor perturbation himself. So, it's chicken and egg "naturally", but if we start adding eggs or chickens we're going to get more of the other. The good news is that there's undoubtedly a Malthusian-like equilibrium ahead. ; )
I don't see it that way. We have clear data, temp rises comes before CO2 accumulation by 1000 years. We have clear data temp falls, come before CO2 decrease by 1000 years. We have lack of data for the middle 3 to 5000 years. That is not chicken or the egg. This is a case of __________ then chicken then egg. _____________ causes temps to go up then CO2 accumulates. _____________ then changes and Temps go down and CO2 then goes down. I also checked again. Apparently Taylor dome ices cores... confirm this result. And, we even see CO2 lag after the recent younger dryas period. And now we even see CO2 accumulation rates lag el nino periods by 6 months.
That's fair, though you did not mention that CO2 accumulation will, if nothing else, lengthen the cycle's period. Before large scale human industry, there likely was a rather steady state of vegetation and CO2 release, so the minor perturbations of solar output and orbit were the main drivers of temperature change, which, 1000 years later resulted in CO2 increase, as you point out. Presumably the CO2 increase was insufficient to outweigh the perturbations and move the equilibrium point. But if a third party begins adding CO2 "before its time", it is a new ballgame, because CO2 does trap heat. Should the addition of CO2 remain constant, then presumably a new equilibrium will be found over a long period of time (it may be an "unfriendly" equilibrium). And I think it plausible that a new, higher background CO2 level could make the original "perturbers" have a greater effect, aka more violent. I think the acceleration of manmade CO2 is irresponsible.
Ricter, have you noticed how jem consistently finds himself on the wrong side of every single argument he engages in? Every single one, with not a single exception I am aware of, be it the birther garbage, evolution, climate change, you name it. What are the odds? Do you think it might be parody?