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More than 100 comments found. Only the most recent 100 have been displayed.

Welcome to Skeptical Science

Bob Loblaw at 01:07 AM on 5 April, 2024

cookclimate @ 118:

I have looked at the paper in the volume I linked to in comment 121. There are definite changes compared to an earlier version I found that said "submitted to Earth and Space Science", so I presume that you've had some sort of review and modified the paper since the earlier drafts.

It looks like you have identified the 1470-year cycle using your eyecrometer. I see nothing in the paper that actually does any sort of signal processing to identify cycles using any objective statistical technique. You are seeing a cycle because you want to see a cycle.

Your speculation includes arguments that include all sorts of stuff that has been debunked many times before. Pages are available on Skeptical Science that cover thee topics:

Geothermal heat flux is included in this post.

The "CO2 lags temperature" argument is discussed here.

Most of your examples use regional, not global, temperature proxies. Regional temperatures are far more variable than global ones, and it is invalid to compare the two directly. This is discussed in this SkS post.

You're convinced that an increase in volcanoes are adding to warming. That is the opposite of the argument commonly made by "skeptics" that increasing volcanic activity caused the Little Ice Age, so a subsequent decrease is causing warming (discussed here). In any event, just counting the number of volcanoes (your figure 3) is extremely simplistic. Arguing that more volcanoes implies more geothermal heat is a non-starter, as discussed in the post linked above.

Your "computer models are unreliable" is an old, tired argument, scoring position 6 on the SkS Most Used Climate Myths. The rebuttal is here.

So, your paper is really nothing more than an "I see it" 1470-year cycle mixed with a rehash and Gish Gallop through a variety of common "skeptic" myths. I could probably find more, but it isn't worth the time.

I hope you didn't pay too much money to get it published.

2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44

michael sweet at 07:28 AM on 10 November, 2023

Dean,

I think the explaination of current heat caused by " El Nino, uptick in 11-year solar cycle, Hunga-Tonga and reduction in aerosols due to 2020 phaseout of sulphur dioxide" is not very satisfying.

The El Nino has just started. Usually the effect of El Nino is felt most at the end of the year and the year following. That means we are just now feeeling the El Nino effect. In addition, the current El Nino is described as moderately strong, not extremely strong source. To me that means that only a little of the extrordinary heat of the past 4 months could be attributed to El Nino. Dr. Zeke Hausfather here primarily attributes the current extreme record temperatures to El Nino. I doubt the El Nino has contributed so much heat so early in the cycle. We will see how much hotter next year is. I think El Nino contributes less than 0.1 C.

The solar cycle only contributes about 0.2 C to warming from the top of the cycle to the bottom. While the cycle has increased a lot this year, it is still not peaking out. The solar cycle is not much different from earlier record years. This contribution is also less than 0.1 C.

The volcano is harder to evaluate. Most volcanoes cool the surface but this one shot a bunch of water into the Stratosphere. Since that has not happened before it is hard to estimate. I think the volcano contributes less than 0.1 C.

October was 0.4 C above the previous record year which had a much stronger El Nino, September was 0.5 C above record, August 0.3 C, July 0.43 C higher. These records are usually broken by hundredths of a degree. The past years had stronger El Ninos and the solar cycle was comparable.

Hausfather's estimates of all the forcings do not add up to 0.5C for September. Hansen has been saying for decades that aerosols reduce temperature much more than the models indicate. I fear that Hansen is correct and the unaccounted for warming is coming mostly from the reduction in aerosols. This is due primarily to the change in marine fuels with some coming from polllution controls in China.

If the record heat is caused primarily by the reduction in aerosols it will be permanent. Next year will be hotter because of the El Nino. Future years will build off a new base that is about 0.4 C higher than it was three years ago. Hansen predicted before this year that 1.5 C would be exceeded before 2030. If this year is above 1.5 C becasue of aerosol reduction than by 2030 it is very likely all years will be above 1.5 C and Hansen will be correct. If the volcanoes effects have been underestimated than after next year the temerature should go down for a few years.

Pray that Hansen is incorrect and the volcano caused this years extraordinary temperatures.

Keep strongly in mnd that Drs Mann, Hansen and Hausfather are way more informed about these matters than individuals who post on the internet, including me. I recommend you try to read as many of their postings as possible to determine who you think is being the most consistent.

New report has terrific news for the climate

nigelj at 10:08 AM on 21 October, 2023

Fred Torssander @5

"It's great - in a way - to have my suspicions and my amateurish comparisions between reported emissions of GHG and measured atmospheric CO2 confirmed by Washington Post no less!"

Yes although I think we all had those suspicions. However IMO while the under measurement of emissions is very concerning, for our purposes it isn't the big issue, because its been reasonably constant going well back. As I stated the big issue is the trend in emissions whether increasing or declining over time, and that trend is likely to be roughly accurate and the growth in emissions looks like it is nearing a plateau from data I've seen.

"Variations in atmospheric CO2, when and if such changes appear, will be hard or even impossible to claim this as an effect of human political (democratic?!) activity. "

Not really. Fistly atmopsheric CO2 levels have been increasing reasonably steadily except that the trend includes a lot of short term wiggles up and down, but those wiggles only last a year or two. They are a result of such things as the yearly seasonal growth cycle, el nino, and the occasional volcanic activity. But these all have very short term effects and known causes.

Once we see something like a change in this atmospheric CO2 trend that lasts at least ten years we could be pretty confident its because of reducing human emissions. It's very difficult to see what else it could be, because no natural cause of emissions is likely to cause a ten year effect on the trend. And if it did it would have to be massive, unprecedented volcanic / geothermal activity of some sort and we would certainly notice that.

"Even in the case that the figures and charts showing temperature confirmed the good news, they would have a margin of error +23%, -0%(!) depending on what the reporting parties (states/nations) pleases."

Temperatures will not be 100% accurately measured, but I doubt temperatures would be that innacurate as 23% out. Where did you get the number?

However I would say atmospheric CO2 levels would be a bit more accurate than temperatures (or emissions trends) and would be the most compelling proof we have made a difference provided we see a decent 5 - 10 year difference in the trend. CO2 levels are quite accurately measured.

"And worse. The emissions of type iii in my first comment, will be compleatly hidden!"

You mentioned el nino and volcanoes. But el nino is not hidden. It is a well known cycle and we know approximately what effect it has on CO2 emissions and its a very short term effect of a couple of years. El nino does not explain long term (greater than five years) trends in CO2 levels.

And volcanic activity is not hidden. Scientists monitor this activity. Unless there is a massive krakatoa sized eruption it is not a significant generator of CO2. Its more significant related to aerosols.

"Lastly: More power produced by "significant solar and wind power" does not neccesarily result in less power produced by burning fossil fuels.Remember Jevons Paradox!"

Jevons paradox says (roughly) that making energy use more efficient does not decrease total energy use, and this has proven to be true, unless you actively fight against the paradox. Germany has had some moderate success making energy use more efficient and also decreasing total energy use, but its required some tight government lead incentives and programmes. And Germany is very disciplined as a people, so other countries might struggle to emulate their modest success.

Regarding the wind and solar power issue, I'm not sure its strictly a Jevons paradox issue because we are not trying to achieve more efficent energy use "per se". We are substituting renewables for fossil fuels. So far those efforts have only stopped the growth in fossil fuels, but as wind and solar power uptake improves in scale, fossil fuel use will fall in absolute terms and has already done in some places. For example, Paraguay, Iceland, Sweden, and Uruguay and France get something like 90% of their electricity from low carbon sources.

New report has terrific news for the climate

Fred Torssander at 21:22 PM on 20 October, 2023

MA Roger @4;
Thanks for your answer.

a) My use of the word fraction was not meant to create misunderstanding. I ought to have used part or ppm instead. Sorry.
1.) The still accelerating growth of the CO2 part of the atmosphere can have several types explainations - I think. i) First of all (Occhams razor) itt might be that the growth is actually accelerating, and the measurements of emissions of GHG are wrong or falsified. There is still very big money being invested in further expanded use of fossil fuels. ii) Then comes non-antropogenic generation, which varies with the activity of volcanoes and the weather, like El Niño that you mention. iii) Then there is the different effects of growing CO2 part of the atmosphere and of rising temperature. Like for example melting ice-lids on gas kettles. Some containing methane.

There seems to be an adequate amount of scientific work on the non-antropogenic and maby also on the iii) category. But how much is done on the question of mistaken or falsified measurements of the emissions?

The temperature anomaly could be verified by scientific use of a common houshold thermometer. At least in populated areas.
Maby that makes temperature the only useful and reliable measure? In that case mabe good news using other measures should comment on the discrepancies between those and the rising of the temperature?

[Berkeley Earth story link]

Yours
Fred Torssander

From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

michael sweet at 22:48 PM on 17 October, 2023

Rabelt,

If we decide to not consider most of what scientists know about the carbon cycle, for example by not considering fossil fuels, volcanoes, the ocean and terrestrial plants, than it is difficult to explain why the carbon 13 is changing. When we consider all that is already known, the explaination for the change in C-13 is that it comes from burning fossil fuels. There is no reason to only consider a fraction of scientific knowledge in our discussion.

Looking at the graph in the OP, I see that before 1800 the concentration of C-13 is flat. You are imagining that you see strong correlations between the carbon concentration and the delta C-13. After 1800 the C-13 dramatically changes. I do not underestand why you think this conplete change from the previous flat line is not significant. The change in C-13 content cannot be from volcanoes or outgassing from the ocean. The only option left is that the C-13 comes from fossil fuels.

Keep in mind that scientists have measured the C-13 content of the air going back much further in time, a couple of hundred thousand years. The only time in the past 400,000 years when there is a dramatic change in the C-13 content of the air in is the last 200 years.

The graph shows that the concentration of C-13 in the atmosphere changed dramatically around 1800. That is when widespread use of fossil fuels started. The C-13 change excludes a volcanic source of the CO2 and also excludes ocean outgassing.

From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

Rabelt at 19:31 PM on 17 October, 2023

John Mason,

Can you guys stop fantasizing what I am saying and inventing what I believe? I am not saying that I have a theory on how the changes in Delta C13 are happening, I am criticizing that the main narrative is giving an absolute as if they have a perfect theory when it can not explain its own proxy.

NEVER SAID ANY REASON AS TO WHY IS HAPPENING, STOP PUTTING WORDS IN MY MOUTH, NO VOLCANOES, NO OCEAN, NO NOTHING, RESPOND TO MY COMMENTS EXCLUSIVELY.

From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

Bob Loblaw at 07:40 AM on 17 October, 2023

Rabelt @ 9, 11, 13, and 14:

You are really missing the big picture on carbon isotope ratios. The C13 levels alone are not "proof" that the fossil fuels are causing the atmospheric rise in CO2 - they are one line of evidence that rules out other sources. You are over-interpreting what you are reading here (or elsewhere).

This post is titled "Part 2". I suggest that you also read Part 1. It gives essential background about how isotope ratios differ across C12, C13, and C14, depending on the source.

You should also read Climate Change Cluedo. Steps 4 and 5 note the significance of changing C14 and C13 levels. To quote,

Declining C14 ratio indicates the source is very old, hence fossil fuel or volcanic (ie, not oceanic outgassing or a recent biological source);

Declining C13 ratio indicates a biological source, hence not volcanic;

Isotope ratios are also discussed on How we know human CO2 emissions have disrupted the carbon cycle, and on What is causing the increase in atmospheric CO2.

The caption on figure 3, which states that declining C13 ratios tell us it is fossil fuel combustion should really be interpreted as "the declining C13 ratio tells us that it is not volcanic. Since volcanoes are the only other possible source of C14-depleted carbon, the only remaining explanation is fossil fuels".

And none of those explanations require that C13 ratios be solely dependent on fossil fuel combustion. Figure 3 shows that for 800 years, C13 ratios were only slightly variable, and have now changed significantly once fossil fuel combustion began.

Your argument that "it changed before, so it can't be fossil fuels now" is just a peculiar flavour of the general "climate's changed before" myth that is number one on the hit parade listed on the upper left of every SkS page.

Just because you don't know of or understand an explanation does not mean that there isn't one.

At a glance - Do volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans?

BaerbelW at 21:17 PM on 21 September, 2023

Note: I just added a screenshot of the fact and myth boxes at the top of the blog post to provide more context for the at-a-glance section. Do you think this is a useful addition to this weekly highlight of the most recently updated rebuttal? Please let us know either here in the comments or via the feedback form. Thanks!

At a glance - Do volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans?

Evan at 22:18 PM on 20 September, 2023

Another way to think about volcanoes is to look back at the record of the really big eruptions: the VEI7 and VEI8 eruptions. The ice-core data does not show any notable change in atmospheric CO2 concentrations associated with these large, infrequent eruptions. Rather, the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations is timed with the start of the industrial revolution, suggesting the cause of the recent rise is not volcanoes, but something associated with the industrial revolution.

Plot of occurrence of VEI7 volcanoes overlayed on ice-core data of atmospheric CO2 concentration.

Ice age predicted in the 70s

Don Williamson at 10:18 AM on 16 August, 2023

To Rob Loblaw

What is a Geologist?

A geologist is a scientist who studies the Earth, its history, and the processes that shape and change it. Geology is a broad field that encompasses the study of rocks, minerals, fossils, mountains, volcanoes, earthquakes, rivers, oceans, glaciers, and more. Geologists use a variety of methods to gather information about the Earth, including fieldwork, laboratory analysis, computer modeling, and remote sensing techniques. They often work in teams with other scientists, engineers, and professionals to solve complex problems related to natural resources, environmental protection, land use, and natural hazards.

That meets the definition of 'climate scientist. btw Prof Michael E Mann has a PhD in Geology, not specifically "climate science"

Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes

One Planet Only Forever at 04:24 AM on 6 April, 2023

Bob Loblaw @54,

I agree that JohnSeers was seeking a debunking of the claim that the evidence of significant rapid recent climate system changes was significantly due to underwater volcanoes heating the oceans.

I think it could be helpful to always clarify a 'climate change' question or claim in the context of 'its significance related to the evidence of significant rapid recent climate system changes'. And there are 2 dominant verifiable (real based on evidence) rapid recent changes:

Increased CO2 levels

Increased global average surface temperature (and warmer oceans)

The evidence and developed understanding to date is so robust that it is very unlikely that fossil fuel use is not the dominant cause of those verifiable rapid recent changes.

As your helpful comment confirms, that part of the science is almost as certain as science can get on any matter (part of the reason many IPCC participants see no value in 'another update'). That leads to misleading political actions hoping to benefit from the popularity of limited awareness and related increased misunderstanding which is limitless. Verifiable evidence always limits the range of believable explanations ...

Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes

Bob Loblaw at 03:21 AM on 6 April, 2023

I had presumed that JohnSeers' question @ 49 was with respect to the direct heating effects of undersea volcanoes, rather than any indirect effects associated with CO2 emissions, etc.

Oceans are an important mechanism of heat transfer. Globally, tropical and subtropical regions absorb much more solar radiation than they emit back to space, so they show a net gain via radiation. Polar and sub-polar regions are the opposite - they lose more by IR emission to space than they absorb from solar radiation.

The climate system re-balances those regions of gain/loss by transporting energy poleward, and this happens via circulation in both the atmosphere and the oceans. Ocean currents such as the Gulf Stream, etc. move large amounts of energy.

And both land areas and ocean floors show vertical heat transport from the interior of the earth to the surface - but as discussed in the link I gave in comment #50, the amounts are small. And as pointed out in comments, to argue that current surface warming is the result of this flux of heat from the earth's core (via volcanoes or regular conduction) would require massive undetected increases in that geothermal heat flux.

Ain't happening, and anyone arguing that it is (without evidence) can be assumed to be badly uninformed (or mis-informed).

Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes

Rob Honeycutt at 01:05 AM on 5 April, 2023

JohnSeers @49... I've heard that one many times before, at least relative to rising atmospheric CO2. What those who make that claim fail to recognize is that CO2 from underwater volcanoes would merely be dissolved into seawater before reaching the surface. It would lead to greater ocean acidification but any atmospheric changes would be limited to the second order effect from changes in the ocean/atmosphere exchange of CO2.

This argument seems more of a "what if" argument someone made up, didn't research, and spun up into a new denial theory.

Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes

JohnSeers at 23:06 PM on 4 April, 2023

There is a third argument made that volcanoes cause global warming. Many underwater volcanoes heat the ocean and transfer heat via the PDO, AMO, ENSO etc.

Is there any debunking of that anywhere?

New resource: myth deconstructions as animated GIFs

BaerbelW at 05:42 AM on 25 March, 2022

The initial 9 animated myth deconstructions have now been added as notes to the related rebuttals:

Does cold weather disprove global warming?

Are glaciers growing or retreating?

CO2 lags temperature - what does it mean?

How reliable are climate models?

How the OISM Petition Project casts doubt on the scientific consensus on climate change

What does past climate change tell us about global warming?

Plants cannot live on CO2 alone

Sun & climate: moving in opposite directions

Do volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans?

Third-costliest year on record for weather disasters in 2021: $343 billion in damages

michael sweet at 06:10 AM on 14 February, 2022

David-acct:

SInce we want to compare apples to apples perhaps we need to consider that modern buildings are built to withstand extreme weather better than older buildings are. This summer I had to replace my roof here in Florida. Part of the cost was to compeltely renail the roof to the rafters because code now requires about twice as many nails. They also use more nails to fasten shingles to the sub roof. After making those appropriate adjustments, the increase in disaster costs is much greater than that presented in the article.

Data easily Googled compare the amount of increased damage from geological disasters (like earthquakes and volcanoes) to the amount of increased damage from weather. These are both affected by population increase and wealth increase. We find that weather changes cause much more damage than geological changes. This indicates that AGW is causing much more damage than would be expected if the climate was not changing. I have not bothered to link the data since you do not provide data links to support your wild claims.

How weather forecasts can spark a new kind of extreme-event attribution

Bob Loblaw at 00:03 AM on 13 January, 2022

The problem I have with the "it's not climate change, it's greenhouse gases" narrative is that the chain of causality never ends. And at each step of the chain, the contrarians will come up with an excuse to ignore it.

After "it's greenhouse gases", the contrarians wll come up with one of the following bogus arguments:

It's not CO₂, it's water vapour.

Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas.

Climate sensitivty is low.

CO₂ lags temperature

etc.

Once you successfully argue that it is CO₂, then you get

Human CO₂ emissions are minor

Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans

CO₂ is coming from the ocean

The rise in CO₂ is natural

etc.

and then if you manage to establish that the rise in CO₂ is due to burning fossil fuels, you get all the "it's not bad", "technology will save us", "you'll hurt the poor", etc arguments.

There are many such arguments on the Skeptical Science "Arguments" page. I have only linked to a few.

Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans

jon_zz09 at 07:54 AM on 13 August, 2021

Thanks guys, very helpful. Yes the difference is huge I knew it was for land volcanoes and suspected the ocean activity wasn't significant, great to have the useful sources to confirm, also found the Wong 2019 from above useful.

Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans

Daniel Bailey at 07:53 AM on 13 August, 2021

Here's what the peer-reviewed published literature shows, that humans produce 100x more CO2 than all Earth's volcanoes combined:

- Just two-one thousandths* of 1% of Earth's total carbon—about 43,500 gigatonnes (Gt)—is above surface in the oceans, on land, and in the atmosphere. The rest is subsurface, including the crust, mantle and core—an estimated 1.85 billion Gt in all.

- CO2 out-gassed to the atmosphere and oceans today from volcanoes and other magmatically active regions is estimated at 280 to 360 million tonnes (0.28 to 0.36 Gt) per year, including that released into the oceans from mid-ocean ridges.

- Humanity’s annual carbon emissions through the burning of fossil fuels and forests, etc., are 40 to 100 times greater than all volcanic emissions.

- Earth’s deep carbon cycle through deep time reveals balanced, long-term stability of atmospheric CO2, punctuated by large disturbances, including immense, catastrophic releases of magma that occurred at least five times in the past 500 million years. During these events, huge volumes of carbon were outgassed, leading to a warmer atmosphere, acidified oceans, and mass extinctions.

- Similarly, a giant meteor impact 66 million years ago, the Chicxulub bolide strike on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, released between 425 and 1,400 Gt of CO2, rapidly warmed the planet and coincided with the mass (>75%) extinction of plants and animals—including the dinosaurs. Over the past 100 years, emissions from anthropogenic activities such as burning fossil fuels have been 40 to 100 times greater than our planet’s geologic carbon emissions.

- A shift in the composition of volcanic gases from smelly (akin to burnt matches) sulphur dioxide (SO2) to a gas richer in odorless, colorless CO2 can be sniffed out by monitoring stations or drones to forewarn of an eruption—sometimes hours, sometimes months in advance. Eruption early warning systems with real-time monitoring are moving ahead to exploit the CO2 to SO2 ratio discovery, first recognized with certainty in 2014.

Regarding the release of CO2 from volcanoes:

"Earth’s total annual out-gassing of CO2 via volcanoes and through other geological processes such as the heating of limestone in mountain belts is newly estimated at roughly 300 to 400 million metric tonnes (0.3 to 0.4 Gt).

Volcanoes and volcanic regions alone outgas an estimated 280–360 million tonnes (0.28 to 0.36 Gt) of CO2 per year. This includes the CO2 contribution from active volcanic vents, from the diffuse, widespread release of CO2 through soils, faults, and fractures in volcanic regions, volcanic lakes, and from the mid-ocean ridge system."

https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-produce-100x-more-co2-than-all-volcanoes-combined
https://deepcarbon.net/scientists-quantify-global-volcanic-co2-venting-estimate-total-carbon-earth
http://elementsmagazine.org/past-issues/catastrophic-perturbations-deep-carbon-cycle/

Kelemen and Manning 2015 - Reevaluating carbon fluxes in subduction zones, what goes down, mostly comes up

de Moor et al 2016 - Short-period volcanic gas precursors to phreatic eruptions: Insights from Poás Volcano, Costa Rica

McCormick et al 2016 - Observing eruptions of gas-rich, compressible magmas from space

Johansson et al 2018 - The Interplay Between the Eruption and Weathering of Large Igneous Provinces and the Deep‐Time Carbon Cycle

Tamburello et al 2018 - Global-scale control of extensional tectonics on CO2 earth degassing

Lee et al 2019 - A Framework for Understanding Whole-Earth Carbon Cycling

Black and Gibson 2019 - Deep Carbon and the Life Cycle of Large Igneous Provinces

Kamber and Petrus 2019 - The Influence of Large Bolide Impacts on Earth’s Carbon Cycle

"pCO2 is a result of the balance between the rate of CO2 inputs through magmatic/metamorphic degassing and the rates of carbon removal via silicate weathering and organic carbon burial."

McKenzie and Hehe Jiang 2019 - Earth’s Outgassing and Climatic Transitions_The Slow Burn Towards Environmental Catastrophes

Mikhail and Furi 2019 - On the Origins and Evolution of Earth’s Carbon

Schobben et al 2019 - Interpreting the Carbon Isotope Record of Mass Extinctions

Suarez et al 2019 - Earth Catastrophes and Their Impact on the Carbon Cycle

Werner et al 2019 - Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Subaerial Volcanic Regions_Two Decades in Review

"All studies to date of global volcanic carbon dioxide emissions indicate that present-day subaerial and submarine volcanoes release less than a percent of the carbon dioxide released currently by human activities. "

https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vhp/gas_climate.html

Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans

scaddenp at 07:32 AM on 13 August, 2021

jon_zz09 - the killer for that argument is the volcanic CO2 has very different C isotopic signature to that fossil fuels. The changes in atmospheric C isotopic composition are consistant with FF source. Furthermore, the studies referenced in this article (and see more here) account for submarine volcanoes. While estimation is difficult even the high end of the estimates is small compared to FF emissions. Finally, there is no evidence of an increase in volcanism as Rob says ( see here from Global Volcanism Program).

Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans

Rob Honeycutt at 05:43 AM on 13 August, 2021

jon_zz09... My understanding is that, any CO2 emitted from underwater volcanoes would be dissolved before reaching the surface. That could be a complicating factor for ocean acidification, but it does nothing to explain the rapid rise in atmospheric concentrations starting with the industrial revolution.

Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans

jon_zz09 at 03:55 AM on 13 August, 2021

Someone I was debating on twitter (I know not a good idea) claims that quote "Out gassing via leakage and fumaroles under the ocean floors and from "quiet" volcanoes and thousands of miles of mid oceanridge" is a significant contribution to CO2 emissions. I'm v.skeptical of this and wondered if anyone else had heard this or had recent estimates for global ocean floor out-gassing from ridges, ocean volcanos and fumaroles. I suspect he is missing geological CO2 sinks

SkS Analogy 22 - Energy SeaSaw

Evan at 22:28 PM on 6 May, 2021

KR thanks for your comments. Because I am not a climate scientist, but I am a chemical engineer, my role is to understand what the experts are saying and then find ways to communicate that message effectively and accurately to non-technical people. One of my goals is to be as consistent as possible with the messaging I hear from the professionals, which you also appear to be.

Whereas I agree technically with what you're saying, what I heard James Hansen say in 1988 is that the warming signal had emerged from the background noise, which was still present in the early 1970's. I hear you saying that James Hansen was able to make his statements because he knew how to remove from the temperature signal the effect of transients, such as ENSO, PDO, volcanoes, ect. I concede that point, but to the casual observer, what they hear is that the 80's were hotter than the 70's. What we commonly hear now is that since the 1970's each successive decade has been hotter than the previous decade. This is the message that I think resonates with people who are really trying to understand what's happening, and not just endlessly argue the points. Considering that globally averaged atmospheric temperatures are increasing about 0.2C/decade, and that the effect of ENSO is to create a transient with a maximum of about 0.2C over a few years, 10 years seems like a suffiiently long time to provide a degree of technical rigour, yet short enough that people can grasp the immediacy of the problem. I can only assume that this is why we hear reports of the trends of decadal, average temperatures

If I try to present all of the nuances, then the presentation also becomes more difficult to follow. Therefore, whereas I concede the point you're making, materially I think it is accurate and consistent with the messaging from climate scientists that the warming signal is clearly seen if we look at the decadal temperature trends.

2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #9

MA Rodger at 04:55 AM on 1 March, 2021

Philippe Chantreau @3,

I would tend to agree with the "not even wrong" catagorisation.

As well as being tiny, the heat flux from seabed into abyssal ocean is also difficult to measure because it is very variable and dependent on geology with perhaps a third of the net 30TW flux through the oceanic crust due to venting (those volcanoes the troll happily concentrates on).

Averaged out, such a net flux would provide perhaps +0.09ºC to the sea bed, an insignificant amount at the surface but less ignorable in the abyssal ocean.

While the effects of the resulting tiny abyssal warming will depend on the location and will always be tiny on an oceanic scale, they do play what is described as a a "non-negligible role" in eroding abyssal stratification and enhansing ocean circulation.

2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #9

Bob Loblaw at 01:08 AM on 1 March, 2021

jamesh:

"Facts". You use that word a lot. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Once again, you are posting a comment on a thread, when you have not engaged in any honest dialog in other threads where people have pointed out your errors.

As for your "facts"

3. Evaporation is not the only way oceans transfer energy away from the surface. Radiation and sensible heat (thermal energy) area also involved.

4. CO2 in water does not behave like most oher gases. If you want to learn more, there is an entire series of posts on ocean CO2 processes. You can start here:

https://skepticalscience.com/Mackie_OA_not_OK_post_0.html

5. You can learn more about volcanoes here:

https://skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global-warming.htm

6. You're wrong here because you're wrong in #4.

At this point, your posting behaviour here has consisted of various "facts" that aren't, with no meaningful engagement in any discussion. You jump from thread to thread with Gish Gallops of incorrect information. Your behaviour reeks of "troll".

DNFTT.

2021 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #9

jamesh at 00:47 AM on 1 March, 2021

With all the concern re. ocean currents, Please consider the following facts about the worlds oceans: 1. oceans cover 70 percent of the earths surface. 2. oceans rest on the earths crust, which increases in temp. all the way down to about 6.8 miles, where it is very hot. 3. The oceans dispose of that heat by means of the evaporation process. 4. The ocean waters contain CO2, if the surface waters are warmed, they will release some of the disolved CO2. 5. Underneath the seas there are volcanoes, volcanic vents etc which emit CO2, heat and I don't know what else. 6. The heat itself will cause an additional release of CO2.

Models are unreliable

gzzm2013 at 13:50 PM on 24 January, 2021

Dayton

2 and 3. So let's put it this simply, let us draw an analogy. Many so called sciences like economics claim that they have economic "models" , which model complex systems, but the fact remains that the economics science is not able to predict the next global financial crisis in magnitude or timing or nature.

Yet people are claiming that the climatic models are reliable and can actually predict future climate (but long term trends only). I would like to hear from the best model, you chose it, name it, locate it, say who programmed it, who maintains it, who financed it (the onus is on the claimant, not me) and say what is the sea level (however they define it) in year 2025, 2030, 2035, 2040, and so on until year 5000. Also change in global temperature (however they define it, give the formal unchanging definition). We of course don't know what the sun is going to do, or volcanoes. So the prediction is contigent of factors that are unforeseable, so the predictions are a function of different combinations and series and progressions of multivariable values. I want to see the data. Should not be hard for a proven theory, right?

4. New topic. Where is the proof that CO2 is driving the climate and not a third exogenous variable, like solar energy. Please post the evidence that proofs undeniably this supposed fact. Remember that correlation does not mean causation.

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #35

nigelj at 13:05 PM on 3 September, 2020

gseattle @8

"[2] NASA: 1880 to 2020 CO2 increased from 291 ppm to 414 ppm = +123 ppm. 123 / 140 years = .88 ppm average per year. 95 percent come from natural sources. Therefore our CO2 is .88 ppm x .05 = only .04 ppm per year average. "

You are very mistaken in your conclusion. The page you link to says: "Die Welt presented a common number-trick (deception, nonsense) by climate deniers, (as follows): In fact, carbon dioxide, which is blamed for climate warming, has only a volume share of 0.04 percent in the atmosphere. And of these 0.04 percent CO2, 95 percent come from natural sources, such as volcanoes or decomposition processes in nature. The human CO2 content in the air is thus only 0.0016 percent........"

The 95% carbon dioxide added by natural sources is largely from the biosphere, and volcanoes etcetera and has been largely constant over the last 100 years and is absorbed back into natural carbon sinks, so it cannot explain the increase from 291 ppm to 414 ppm. Only human activities like burning fossil fuels and deforestation explain it, because these has been ever increasing activities, and not all the CO2 is absorbed back into carbon sinks. If you refer to the list of climate myths on this website page at the side, you will find some detailed explanations.

"That's why NOAA pointed out the covid shutdown didn't make a dent in CO2 levels at Mauna Loa Observatory, because nature's portion is so vast."

No that is not the reason. NOAA are saying the effects of covid on CO2 levels cant be detected atmospherically because they are masked by the quite large cyclical variation of CO2 you get within one or two years due to seasonal changes and el nino. If the covid shutdown went on for say 5 years you would see a change in atmospheric levels.

So you have misinterpreted things quite badly.

I agree population growth is a problem in terms of virtually all environmental impacts, but I think that manipulating this trend is unlikely to do much to stop either the climate change problem or species extinction, as follows. Population started to slow since the 1960s as countries have entered the demographic transition which has favoured smaller families, and as governments have sometimes pushed population growth rates down deliberately. There may be more that can be done to slow population growth, but it would seem unlikely that people will stop having children and more likely that they might settle on 1 - 2 chidren.

This means the population trends still lead to about 9 billion people or so by the end of this century, so this would not have any significant effect on slowing down the climate problem or biodiversity loss, this century anyway. And by then the damage will have been done.

So its important we change our sources of energy, and reduce deforestation and change how we farm.

Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

duncan61 at 16:09 PM on 22 March, 2020

I will pick sea levels,The actual tide reading at locations around the world are real and recordable but the NASA data is different and the modelling even wilder.Its hard to take it serious when predictions are made but do not come true in real time.I have access to claims that areas where I live would be underwater by 2020.Well can we agree its 2020 and the areas are still there and not flooded.I was wrong about the sea levels in Fremantle they have gone up 200mm but its over 160 years and the sea is lower at French Guyana.The magnetic poles are moving and undersea volcanoes occur plus localized silting.There is a claim here locally that the land is sinking because we are using a lot of groundwater for consumption.You can easy find all the data online or would you like me to post pictures with wriggly lines on it.I am keen to find the truth and need some actual proof.On another forum a poster showed before and after pictures of a glacier the first is from 1940 and its all iced up the second is recent and it shows all the ice gone except on the top of the mountain.The only problem I picked up on was the second photo is clearly much closer than the first and the water level is way down on the first photo where they were standing at the edge of the lake.The second photo they would have been 30 feet under and it is definitely the same place.That individual never posted again once I pointed this out.Makes it hard to take it for real.What do you have.Claims based on what should happen.Can anyone in the universe show me where its flooded and not Norfolk because that always floods on the spring tide.I have seen pictures of 1940 airbases on pacific Islands that are only 1 metre above sea level and they are still there

I had an intense conversation at work today.

Doug_C at 18:56 PM on 16 January, 2020

barryn56 @35

As per this article

Global trends in wildfire and its impacts: perceptions versus realities in a changing world

Perceptions versus reality?

Last year we set a record for wildfire activity in this province BC, the year before that was the third worse on record and 2009 one of the worst.

2018 was also California's worst wildfire season on record.

We are seeing the same pattern in Siberia and also in Australia where as michael sweet comments they are seeing wildfires in places where they have never been encountered before.

The same trend in Europe and the Amazon was on fire last year, a rainforest where wildfires are typically not of that extent.

This all in the context of most of the highest global average temperatures being in this century just 20 years old.

Climate change science is based on observation and theory that dates back centuries, are you asking that we discount the role that carbon dioxide plays in moderating the Earth's heat budget. Something that was well established over a century ago, this is hardly new science that needs to be deciphered.

If as you claim you have a genuine desire to learn the full extent of this subject then take the time to learn it to the depth necessary. Spend a few days or if you have the time a few weeks going through this and other resources.

James Balog has been traveling the world documenting on film and video the rapid retreat of the cryosphere, if you want a visual representation if the ability of carbon dioxide to trap heat then view his work at;

Extreme Ice Survey

Or the works of James Hansen at Columbia and GISS

Dr. James E. Hansen

Or the IPCC 2017 Report

IPCC 2017 Summary

Or many other resources that others here can fill you in on.

If you are presenting a viewpoint that runs counter to what almost all the evidence is telling us then in the end that comes down to you chosing those resources that are presenting a contrary position.

And while you can ask for assistence in determing the most likely explanation, you simply can't demand that anyone "prove" to your satisfaction this isn't happening or that it can't be carbon dioxide responsible.

In the end that is an impossible task with those who refuse to accept any case that this is so no matter how strong the theoretical and practical observational evidence that supports this.

The simple fact is, carbon dioxide is the most important persistent gas in the atmosphere for moderating the heat budget for the Earth's surface. This was recognized in the 1850s and quantified in the 1890s.

The case for this has only grown stronger in the century that followed as theory and experimental equipment has evolved to provide a very clear picture of this subject.

We know the concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by over 120ppm in the last century and we also know that the Earth's average temperature has increased as well as EM radiation in the spectrum absorbed and re-emitted by CO2 has increased at the Earth's surface consistent with far more of it being intercepted by all the extra CO2 we have emitted.

At about 100 times the rate of natural tectonic activity.

Are Volcanoes or Humans Harder on the Atmosphere?

You need to look at the entire picture to get an understanding of the scope and impacts of climate change and the still massive output of human generated CO2 every year.

Cherry picking extremely isolated subtopics and trying to conflate that into real doubt about what is one of the most solidly grounded topics in science today simply isn't genuine in any sense.

Look at the entire forest - to see that much of it is on fire - instead of picking an isolated tree that happens to be in a region that hasn't been impacted yet and claim that is indicative of the real picture.

It's cosmic rays

Daniel Bailey at 06:22 AM on 4 December, 2019

jmh530, the best available evidence we have is that there is no direct linkage between the sun’s output and cosmic rays impacting the Earth’s climate. Now that’s a broad statement, but let’s examine some more in-depth evidence on those individual components.

Scientists use a metric called Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) to measure the changes in output of the energy the Earth receives from the Sun. And TSI, as one would expect given the meaning behind its acronym, incorporates the 11-year solar cycle AND solar flares/storms.

The reality is, over the past 4 decades of significant global warming, the net energy forcing the Earth receives from the Sun had been negative. As in, the Earth should be cooling, not warming, if it was the Sun.

It's not the sun

The scientists at CERN designed an experiment called CLOUD to evaluate the potential impacts of cosmic rays on clouds and cloud nucleation (Cloud Condensing Nuclei = CCN).

Per CLOUD director Kirkby:

"At the present time we can not say whether cosmic rays affect the climate."

Looking at the results of CLOUD, if cosmic rays were a significant factor in affecting our climate, the Earth should have been cooling, not warming. Instead 8 of the warmest 10 years have all occurred in the most recent 10 years.

Erlykin et al 2013 - A review of the relevance of the ‘CLOUD’ results and other recent observations to the possible effect of cosmic rays on the terrestrial climate

“The problem of the contribution of cosmic rays to climate change is a continuing one and one of importance. In principle, at least, the recent results from the CLOUD project at CERN provide information about the role of ionizing particles in ’sensitizing’ atmospheric aerosols which might, later, give rise to cloud droplets. Our analysis shows that, although important in cloud physics the results do not lead to the conclusion that cosmic rays affect atmospheric clouds significantly, at least if H2SO4 is the dominant source of aerosols in the atmosphere. An analysis of the very recent studies of stratospheric aerosol changes following a giant solar energetic particles event shows a similar negligible effect. Recent measurements of the cosmic ray intensity show that a former decrease with time has been reversed. Thus, even if cosmic rays enhanced cloud production, there would be a small global cooling, not warming.”

Modern CCN are pretty much insensitive to cosmic rays and changes in TSI from the Sun, compared to the very much larger anthropgenic and natural contributions (volcanoes, oceanic oscillations and wildfires):

"New particle formation in the atmosphere is the process by which gas molecules collide and stick together to form atmospheric aerosol particles. Aerosols act as seeds for cloud droplets, so the concentration of aerosols in the atmosphere affects the properties of clouds. It is important to understand how aerosols affect clouds because they reflect a lot of incoming solar radiation away from Earth's surface, so changes in cloud properties can affect the climate.
Before the Industrial Revolution, aerosol concentrations were significantly lower than they are today. In this article, we show using global model simulations that new particle formation was a more important mechanism for aerosol production than it is now. We also study the importance of gases emitted by vegetation, and of atmospheric ions made by radon gas or cosmic rays, in preindustrial aerosol formation.
We find that the contribution of ions and vegetation to new particle formation was also greater in the preindustrial period than it is today.
However, the effect on particle formation of variations in ion concentration due to changes in the intensity of cosmic rays reaching Earth was small."

And

"...solar cycle variations of ion concentration lead to a maximum 1% variation of CCN0.2% concentrations. This is insignificant on an 11 year timescale compared with fluctuations due to, for example, the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, variations in wildfires, or volcanoes."

Gordon et al 2017 - Causes and importance of new particle formation in the present-day and preindustrial atmospheres

And the coup de grace for cosmic rays, being proven to unable to significantly affect clouds and climate, is that CCN respond too weakly to changes in Galactic Cosmic Rays to yield a significant influence on clouds and climate.

Pierce 2017 - Cosmic rays, aerosols, clouds, and climate: Recent findings from the CLOUD experiment

Scientist Richard Alley pretty much killed the cosmic ray hypothesis here (the relevant part of the lecture starts at 42:00)

"We had a big cosmic ray signal, and the climate ignores it. And it is just about that simple! These cosmic rays didn’t do enough that you can see it, so it’s a fine-tuning knob at best."

To recap, the Laschamp excursion (the strongest cosmic ray event in the past 40,000 years) hammered climate for 2,550 years about 40,000 years ago. The flux of beryllium-10 produced by cosmic rays greatly increased as the Earth’s magnetic field weakened by 90%.

Climate ignored it.

Here is the chart he’s referring to, showing how the flux of beryllium-10 produced by cosmic rays greatly increased as the Earth’s magnetic field weakened by 90% about 40,000 years ago.

It's not cosmic rays

From the AR5, WG1, Chapter 7, p. 573:

"Cosmic rays enhance new particle formation in the free troposphere, but the effect on the concentration of cloud condensation nuclei is too weak to have any detectable climatic influence during a solar cycle or over the last century (medium evidence, high agreement). No robust association between changes in cosmic rays and cloudiness has been identified. In the event that such an association existed, a mechanism other than cosmic ray-induced nucleation of new aerosol particles would be needed to explain it. {7.4.6}"

Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions

bozzza at 06:21 AM on 18 October, 2019

Vacnol: volcanoes are like pimples: irrelevant...and that is exactly how the scientists in this field view the matter !

It's not us

MA Rodger at 22:48 PM on 1 October, 2019

richieb1234 @98,

The basic problem you face trying to simply show a tight correlation between forcing & temperature is the impact of large short-term changes in climate forcing caused by volcanoes superimposed on the slower changes in climate forcing, as shown here in IPCC AR5 Fig 8-18. (The numbers are available in AR5 AII table 1.2.)

IPCC AR5 Fig 8.18

Because of these more dynamic changes, I have found the task involves far more than forcing and sensitivity. Even using a simple Climate Response Function (the timed progression of a warming resulting from a forcing based on the sensitivity - see for instance Hansen et al (2011) who discuss these at some length.) doesn't overcome the problem. You would end up having to set up what is undeniably a model to convert forcing into the resulting global temperature change. (I would add here that in 1910 the climate system was far from in-balance and so 1910 is not a good date to begin such modelling.) And for such a model not to be actually emprirically-based, you would probably end up with a full GCM model whose credibility has, as you say, been criticised by climate denialists.

This is what is being shown in the link @99. But I would ask if you need the modelling to present the message that the climate forcing of recent times forcing is overwhelmingly anthropogenic with the only significant effect from natural forcing being those short-term volcanic forcings. If the forcings are overwhelmingly anthropogenic, it is surely difficult to argue that it is not the same for the warming.

2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #27

scaddenp at 08:06 AM on 24 July, 2019

I would add two things.

1/ The actual surface temperature year to year is strongly affected by internal variation. ie heat sloshing around in a wet, unevenly heated planet. ENSO is the dominant component of this. For this reason, climate is defined as 30 year average. Arguably, Ocean Heat Content is a better metric than surface because most of the heat goes into the ocean and the total energy varies less (the little wobbles are ocean/atmosphere exchange). However, we have only been able to measure this with confidence relatively recently.

2/ Climate changes in response to net forcing. Changes GHGs are only one element (though the dominant one in recent history), but aerosols either man made or from volcanoes are also important (especially mid 20th century, and after really big tropical volcano eruptions). Changes in solar input and albedo are the other important inputs into calculation of forcings.

Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s energy: A key to climate variability and change

Penguin at 08:00 AM on 10 July, 2019

There did not seem to be an obvious place to post these queries, so please redirect me if appropriate - links to references would be great thanks... Out of general curiosity..

1) To what extent is earth cooling (heat emission from the surface - volcanoes, earthquakes, geysers, steam etc) contributing to surface warming?

2) People generate heat from activity. I also read that energy use per person increases as countries become more developed. If we did not increase net CO2 (through burning etc) and used other energy sources (e.g. nuclear) how much heat per person at the surface would we still be contributing to surface warming? Put in another way, how much ∆AGW is directly atributable just to ∆population numbers?

3) A general query re the atmopsphere - if we add gasses (like CO2) the atmosphere becomes heavier. At a given temperature does the atmosphere [by PV = nT] expand, or does sea level pressure increase (or both)? In a similar vein, if T increases, does the atmosphere expand or sea level pressure increase (or both)? Also what is the effect (if any) on atmospheric pressure and volume of adding particulate matter (e.g.smoke or dust)?

4) Why are some gasses apparently well distributed within the atmosphere (like CO2) and some (like Ozone) form layers? Are some gasses proportionatey more prevalent in the Troposphere than the stratosphere?

Antarctica is gaining ice

MA Rodger at 23:27 PM on 24 June, 2019

Ataluma @489,

Concerning ther seismological part of your comment, a 2012 book 'Waking the Giant: How a Changing Climate Triggers Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and Volcanoes' by Bill McGuire has a CarbonBrief assessment here.

Climate's changed before

MA Rodger at 21:15 PM on 13 June, 2019

jesscars @739,

The variation of CO2 levels in very ancient times generally resulted from a balance between the amount of carbon being drawn down into the geology by rock-forming and the amount of carbon being ejected by volcanoes. Periods of mountain-building have an impact on that balance, as do periods of extreme volcanism. The results of modelling of very ancient CO2 levels (using GEOCARB III) have been pretty-much supported by the geological evidence.

The mechanisms that are at work at a more detailed level can be much more complex. Thus the last de-glaciation saw a rise in CO2 levels but that was the product of many different mechanisms, many of which didn't actually work to increase CO2 levels. Thus warming oceans increase CO2 levels but the significant increase in ocean volume as the ice melts into the oceans decreases it. Peat exposed to clmate change releases CO2 while increased bio-activity buries it. (See Ganopolski & Brovkin (2017) for a study of these mechanisms.)

You also ask specifically about the ice-age cycles. These have been the major feature of global climate for the last 3 million years and until about 1 million years ago they occurred every 40,000 years but now occur every 100,000 years. It is probably best to see ice-ages as being caused by the unstable nature of the full glacial climate. When triggered by the Milankovitch cycles heating the high northern latitudes, an interglacial will result from northern ice sheets melting out. Thus today, if the melt on Greenland were to become enough to drop the summit significantly (a likely event if AGW reached +1.5ºC for a few centuries), the lowered icy-cold top would warm enough to allow more melting and lower it further. Building it back up with new snowfall is a far slower process, so without the return of an ice-age, once ice sheets like the Greenland one begin to go, they go all the way.

The reason for the change from 40ky to 100ky ice-age timing is not truly understood. The trigger is the Milancovitch cycle, the 40ky from the tilt in axis & the 100ky from a component of the eccentricity variation. One theory is that dust (which increases the sunlight absorbed by ice) was greater in past 40yr ice-ages but now the soils that created that level of dust have been scoured away leaving un-dusty bedrock.

Climate's changed before

jesscars at 14:54 PM on 13 June, 2019

If CO2 caused the temperature to change, (and is resposible for the climate historically) what caused the CO2 to change? Volcanoes? Is there any geological evidence to support this theory?

Why do the ice-ages and deglacial period occur cyclically, approximately every 100,000 years? Is there some geological pattern identified on earth that would explain cyclical volcanic activity and CO22 emission?

N.B. The ice-ages coincide with one of the Milankovitch cycles - the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, which goes through cycles of approx. 100,000 years. If the earth periodically gets further away from or closer to a hot object, this should have some influence on the earth's temperature, correct?

Humans and volcanoes caused nearly all of global heating in past 140 years

Eclectic at 20:41 PM on 31 May, 2019

Higgijh @post3 ,

(3) My apologies for fumbling your IPPC reference, but I turn up a completely inappropriate graph at Page 43. Would you be kind enough to insert your correct graph into the thread here? [Remembering the 500px width limit.] On second thoughts, it would be better for you to select a different thread ~ one where the question of Asian coal vs gas usage is on-topic (as it is not really relevant to the headline topic here of Humans and Volcanoes causing global heating since 1880 ).

(2) There is always the question of localization effects and time-resolution effects, in the assessing of temperature proxies in ice and sediments. But broadly speaking, these proxies are useful even when time-resolution is low.

We know that the climate only changes when something causes it to change ~ so in the absence of major factor changes in the last 10,000 years, we can [for example] be confident that the present-day world temperature is distinctly hotter than the Medieval Warm Period or the Roman Warm period or the "Holocene Optimum".

(1) Higgijh, this IPCC Page 43 seems the correct one you mean for (1). But I am entirely unclear on what difficulties you are having with it.

Climate trends are best assessed over a period of usually 30 years (or more) ~ so it is rather unsurprising that the Figure (c) over 60 years shows a good concordance between observations & models. Likewise it is not surprising that the short periods Fig. (a) 1998-2012 and Fig. (b) 1984-1998 , show observation/model disparity, since "natural internal variability" is more dominant during such very short periods.

The construction of climate models serves two purposes :-

# helping the assessment of individual climate factors [e.g. evapo-transpiration]

# projecting what may happen in the future, by a way which is likely to be much better than a guess ( = the equivalent of holding up a wetted finger to the breeze ).

Humans and volcanoes caused nearly all of global heating in past 140 years

Bill Bishop at 03:05 AM on 31 May, 2019

Dana, it's great to see another article of yours in the Guardian!

The headline is misleading as it implies that 1.) volcanoes cause warming, and 2.) that the warming they cause is comparable to the impact of human emissions. While the article explains that a lull in volcanic activity in the mid-20th century caused less cooling, describing this as a heating effect can misinform laypeople scanning the headlines.

The temperature evolution after 2016 suggests hotter future

scaddenp at 09:08 AM on 22 March, 2019

The blog post happily assumes variation from the trendline is "natural variability". Huh?

Above the climate forcing used by models. Volcanoes are of course natural variability but it would be a mistake to regard the variability as unforced change. Furthermore, the effect of man-made aerosols (ie pollution) 1940-1960 remain hard to tie down.

The temperature evolution after 2016 suggests hotter future

scaddenp at 07:13 AM on 21 March, 2019

Invoking unspecified "natural cycles" does not further understanding. There are certainly natural "cycles" or more likely quasi-periodic variations at work. It is important to distinquish between internal variability (energy moving around in an unevenly heated water-covered planet) and variability in climate forcing (eg milankovich cycles, solar output variation, volcanic aerosols). Internal variability is things like the ENSO cycle which is dominate cause of intra-decadal variability. These are unpredictable, (chaotic) and affect climate largely by heat exchange between ocean and atmosphere. Climate models have no skill in predicting these variations. When you see a graph like:

then the grey area is the space defined by multiple individual model runs. Any observational line within the grey area is compatiable with the model output. If you look at individual runs of the climate models, then you see the many possible outcomes. This post covers what the models are actually telling you. There is no skill expected at decadal predictions, but the model mean does a pretty good job at prediction the 30-year (climate) trends.

While small amounts of heat transfer from oceans affect temperature, blaming warming on heat coming from the ocean while ocean heat content is increasing is "voodoo economics". If some unknown ocean "cycle" is providing the heat, then how come the ocean is getting hotter?

Variation in external forcings is another story. The milankovich forcing is readily calculated and we are warming despite a very slow negative orbital forcing. Solar has quasi-periodic cycles but we can directly measure solar input at top of atmosphere. You cannot claim a solar cause when solar input is flat or declining. Volcanoes of cource are unpredictable but models must put in a "average" changes to aerosol forcings or the models would run too hot. You can always re-run models with actual forcings for solar, volcanic etc and this is done.

Antarctica is too cold to lose ice

Daniel Bailey at 00:39 AM on 11 March, 2019

As Eclectic notes, do not post the same comment on more than 1 page here. Put it on the most appropriate thread and wait for feedback.

Repeated from the other thread, augmented by extra content in response to the Schroeder paper:

The paper itself makes it clear that this result only applies to the area of the Thwaites Glacier. Not the WAIS in its entirety nor the rest of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, all of which are showing significant mass losses. Per the PAPER:

"We estimate a minimum average geothermal flux value of about 114 mW/m2 with a notional uncertainty of about 10 mW/m2 for the Thwaites Glacier catchment with areas exceeding 200 mW/m2"

So not a lot more than actual mean heat flows of continents and oceans, which are 65 and 101 mW m−2, respectively. And just in the area of Thwaites Glacier. A very tiny subset of the WAIS, itself a small portion of the overall Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Further, the authors of the paper have themselves repudiated misinterpretations of their paper:

"Dear Cryolist,
The last couple of days have been interesting. What seemed like an innocuous chat with a San Antonio AM radio station about the findings of our new paper on geothermal flux under Thwaites Glacier rapidly turned into a confusing internet news story on how we had disproven anthropogenic global warming (this news story has now been taken down at our request). This is obviously not the case.
For the record:
-Our study has no bearing on whether or not anthropogenic global warning is occurring.
-The amount of basal melting we find, although elevated compared to typical values estimated for Antarctica, is minor compared with both ice flux over the grounding line, snow fall in the catchment, and near the grounding line, the implied geothermal melting is small compared to the ice lost observed through various methods.
-We believe the main effect of this elevated heat flow is on the distribution and evolution of basal traction in the catchment. There may be a role for time varying interior boundary conditions to influence ice dynamics, complementing the now well established links to ice shelf thinning and ocean dynamics.
By and large, the media response to the paper has been accurate, but there obviously have been some outliers."
Cheers,
Duncan Young, Don Blankenship, Enrica Quartini and Dustin Schroeder

Additionally, vulcanism has been present in Antarctica for well over 50 million years.

The ice sheet there formed 34 million years ago, and persisted since, in spite of that vulcanism. A subglacial heat mantle plume would have produced detectable subglacial drainage and melting events. None has been detected for the Pine Island Glacier and the adjacent Thwaites Glacier has proven largely insensitive to the presence of such a mantle heat source:

"volcanic heat does not contribute significantly to the glacial melt observed in the ocean at the front of the ice shelf"

And

"the heat source beneath the Pine Island Glacier is roughly 25 times greater than the bulk heat flux from an individual dormant volcano"

The heat coming from the geothermal activities under the ice is not a whole lot more than that coming from a dormant volcano.

People walk on dormant volcanoes. Trees grow on them.

In Antarctica, ice forms on them.

Marie Byrd Land

The volcanic heat plume mentioned under the ice of a portion of Antarctica is fossil heat; its last activity predates the formation of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (itself more than 34 million years old).

"The plume is far older than the recent period of atmospheric warming; indeed, at 50 million to 110 million years old, it's older than our species and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet itself."

So the ice in the area formed anyway, in spite of the supposed "volcano".

Influence of a West Antarctic mantle plume on ice sheet basal conditions

Antarctica is gaining ice

Daniel Bailey at 00:29 AM on 11 March, 2019

Vulcanism has been present in Antarctica for well over 50 million years.

"volcanic heat does not contribute significantly to the glacial melt observed in the ocean at the front of the ice shelf"

And

"the heat source beneath the Pine Island Glacier is roughly 25 times greater than the bulk heat flux from an individual dormant volcano"

The heat coming from the geothermal activities under the ice is not a whole lot more than that coming from a dormant volcano.

People walk on dormant volcanoes. Trees grow on them.

In Antarctica, ice forms on them.

Marie Byrd Land

The volcanic heat plume mentioned under the ice of a portion of Antarctica is fossil heat; its last activity predates the formation of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (itself more than 34 million years old).

"The plume is far older than the recent period of atmospheric warming; indeed, at 50 million to 110 million years old, it's older than our species and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet itself."

So the ice in the area formed anyway, in spite of the supposed "volcano".

Influence of a West Antarctic mantle plume on ice sheet basal conditions

Antarctica is gaining ice

Eclectic at 00:10 AM on 11 March, 2019

Roque @484 ,

you can get more information from the University of Washington, which studies this area.

If I understand it correctly, there was no suggestion that the 91 previously unknown volcanoes were new (i.e. producing additional new heat to melt the overlying ice). So presumably all the local volcanoes have been producing heat for thousands of years ~ not much changed over the 5-6000 years demonstrated in the glacial records there.

But do note that there is a possibility that, as AGW causes more melting, there will be less weight of ice pressing down on the volcanic areas . . . and the volcanoes might therefore be able to increase their activity in the future (contributing to even faster ice melt & sea-level rise over an uncertain period). This is just one more of the uncertainties about rate of sea-level rise over the next century or more.

Antarctica is too cold to lose ice

roque at 23:43 PM on 10 March, 2019

It seems the melting of the land ice of the west coast has to be found in the volcanoes underneath the glaciers that have been discovered, not in human activity. A 2017 study claimed to have found 138 volcanoes, of which 91 were previously unknown. See :

https://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/early/2017/05/26/SP461.7

Antarctica is gaining ice

roque at 20:50 PM on 10 March, 2019

It seems the melting of the land ice of the west coast has to be found in the volcanoes that have been discovered not in the human activity. A 2017 study claimed to have found 138 volcanoes, of which 91 were previously unknown. See :

https://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/early/2017/05/26/SP461.7

It's waste heat

scaddenp at 10:13 AM on 6 March, 2019

Volcanoes, surfaces warmed by sun or atmosphere - and car engines say - all directly emit radiation in proportion to their temperature.

In a power station, energy losses from heat radiated by the boiler and lost as hot gases escaping the flue are typically only 10-20% of the energy value of the fuel. ( I am working with efficiency analysis tools from power station data, but I think this is easily discoverable online). In a car, the losses are much higher.

Still, cooling systems do heat the air, but the air has no trouble emitting IR. There is nothing special about the air warmed by FF compared to it warmed by any other mechanism. You can measure it with a pyrogeometer. Scienceofdoom walks you through the text book here.

It's waste heat

AEBanner at 07:56 AM on 6 March, 2019

Energy causes Global Warming

scaddenp @179

Do you not agree that heat from the Sun, volcanoes, etc, can be radiated away to space?
But sensible heat from the burning of fossil fuels, ie kinetic energy of the air molecules, cannot be radiated. It must first be converted into “photon” energy by collision with GHG molecules. Perhaps you can provide a number for the proportion of greenhouse gas molecules in the atmosphere which can undergo the required excitation per unit time,
together with a reference for me to follow up?
This would really be helpful, and I should be grateful for the information.

Of course, you are correct in stating that burning fossil fuels can possibly raise the surrounding structures to a temperature at which radiation could become significant, but I have no idea regarding the proportion relative to kinetic energy emission.
Again, I hope you can reply quantitatively, with references. It would be a great help.

Many thanks, in advance.

It's waste heat

AEBanner at 05:42 AM on 6 March, 2019

Energy causes Global Warming

michael sweet @174

In this post you have completely misrepresented some of my ideas/remarks; in reality, you are not the only one to have done this previously.
Or perhaps you have simply completely understood my post @172
Or again, perhaps, you carelessly made a genuine mistake, in which case no apology is expected.

I quote your first two paragraphs.
“You contradict yourself. You have claimed that sensible heat emitted by humans accumulates in the atmosphere. Yet you now claim that sensible heat from volcanoes is emitted to space as radient energy. A contradictory argument can automatically be dismissed.
You cannot have it both ways. If human heat accumulates than volcano heat must also accumulate. If volcano heat is emitted to space than human heat must also be emitted. Since the volcano heat is so much greater it is the dominant effect.
End Quote.

Now I shall quote from my own previous post @172 to you, last three paragraphs.

My Quote
“Anyway, back to the volcanoes. As far as I know, the output from a volcano consists of hot lava, hot material particles, and much heat energy in the form of sensible heat, that is kinetic energy. And, of course, the adjacent land area will also be raised in temperature.

The hot materials including lava, particles and the hot adjacent land will radiate energy, in line with black body radiation, which ultimately escapes to space. The sensible heat in the form of kinetic energy of the air molecules mainly enters the oceans, in line with the 97% value you are no doubt referring to from the IPCC AR4 report, and Kevin Trenberth’s 3% into the atmosphere. ( This latter subject to further interaction with the oceans and associated subsequent radiation.)

But the important thing here is that the oceans, being liquid, will also radiate, eventually to space, and this will proceed to maintain a satisfactory balance. Yes,
the volcano emissions started billions of years ago, but so did the balancing radiation, so maintaining a satisfactory temperature for the Earth’s surface, and not boiling away the oceans.”

End my quote

You will see that I wrote that, in respect of volcanoes, sensible heat in the form of kinetic energy of the air molecules mainly enters the oceans.
Then see my third paragraph.

Another quote from your @ 174

Scientists have shown that waste heat is emitted to space in the year that it was created

End quote

This, at least, is interesting. Please grant me the courtesy of a reference to this.

It's waste heat

scaddenp at 10:18 AM on 5 March, 2019

"But, if additional energy enters the system and cannot be radiated away, then the temperature will increase."

Let me if I this right. You are claiming that heat from the sun, volcanoes etc can be radiated away but heat from burning FF cannot? The 10²³J from FF stays in atmosphere, but 4x10²⁶J from radiation is irradiated away.

Furthermore, your calculations on what energy of gases seem to assume a limit based on mean energy per molecule rather than the distribution of energies of molecules in the gas, though I see some this has now been deleted, so that is progress.

The biggest issue is the idea that energy from FF is special and cant escape to space. So a surface heated by the sun will irradiate to space, but a surface heated same temperature by oil or coal will not? This does not make sense,

"Initially all the energy enters the atmosphere." Huh?? and subsequent paragraphs mean that assume the energy enters the atmosphere only by increased kinetic energy of gases. Maybe your "initially" is misunderstood. When I am in thermal power station (where I have spent rather a lot of time), a rather useful amount of the energy from FF go into electricity though it will eventually get converted. Some heats the air and goes up the chimney but most is lost to environment via the cooling tower into water. And, boy to some parts of the plant irradiate IR!!!

I fail to see what is so special about these energy conversions that prevent the loss to space?

It's waste heat

michael sweet at 03:54 AM on 5 March, 2019

AEBanner,

You contradict yourself. You have claimed that sensible heat emitted by humans accumulates in the atmosphere. Yet you now claim that sensible heat from volcanoes is emitted to space as radient energy. A contradictory argument can automatically be dismissed.

You cannot have it both ways. If human heat accumulates than volcano heat must also accumulate. If volcano heat is emitted to space than human heat must also be emitted. Since the volcano heat is so much greater it is the dominant effect.

Scientists have shown that waste heat is emitted to space in the year that it was created. It does not accumulate from year to year as you claim. It is interesting that the integrated amount of waste heat is the same order of magnitude as thje increased heat in the atmosphere, but we already knew that: it has been previously discussed here at Skeptical Science.

I taught introductory college chemistry, including black body radiation, for 10 years. It is clear from your posts that you have no idea how black body radiation works. Your calculations up thread demonstrate that to anyone who understands radiation.

It's waste heat

AEBanner at 02:03 AM on 5 March, 2019

Energy causes Global Warming

michael sweet @169

Thank you for your new post. I’m sorry you believe I have not answered your questions about volcanoes. I thought I did quite well.

However, if you wish, I shall be happy to try again. But this may incur some repetition in parts, for the sake of clarity and continuity.

I feel sure you agree with my opening remarks in my initial response to you @167.
And I do, in fact, know what “black body” radiation is about.
But in my reply to you @167, I did not bring up the figures of 97% or 3%. So please let me know which of my posts you are concerned about. It would seem to be additional to your initial post. OK, no problem.

Anyway, back to the volcanoes. As far as I know, the output from a volcano consists of hot lava, hot material particles, and much heat energy in the form of sensible heat, that is kinetic energy. And, of course, the adjacent land area will also be raised in temperature.

But the important thing here is that the oceans, being liquid, will also radiate, eventually to space, and this will proceed to maintain a satisfactory balance. Yes, the volcano emissions started billions of years ago, but so did the balancing radiation, so maintaining a satisfactory temperature for the Earth’s surface, and not boiling away the oceans.

Please let me know if I have not covered some matter you are concerned about.

It's waste heat

michael sweet at 22:12 PM on 4 March, 2019

AEBanner,

Your answer does not begin to answer my question.

You claim in your answer the "sensible heat" from volcanoes goes into the ocean. You do not say what fraction of the heat that is. Obviously the same fraction of volcanic "sensible heat" has to stay in the atmosphere as the fraction of human waste heat. The ocean has no way to determine what heat is volcanic and what is human waste heat.

Let me presume that 97% of the heat goes into the ocean while 3% remains in the atmosphere. 97% of volcanic heat is still much more than the waste heat humans release. In addition, you do not count the 3% remaining in the atmosphere when you make your calculation of accumulated waste heat. If you count this heat in your calculation it will make the temperature go up way too much.

If 97% of the volcanic heat went into the ocean for 4 billion years (we can neglect that 4 billion years ago the volcanic heat was much higher) and accumulated there as you claim the ocean would have boiled away. Obviously that has not happened.

Please explain why all the accumulated heat has not boiled away the ocean.

Obviously the "sensible heat" from volcanoes has gone somewhere. Scientists say that it has radiated out into space from black body radiation with the rest of the energy, including the "sensible heat" that humans have released. I have shown that it cannot accumulate in the ocean as you said. Where do you now say it goes????

A word from an old chemistry teacher: when you do not understand what black body radiation is you cannot discuss the Earth's energy balance intelligently.

It's waste heat

AEBanner at 21:03 PM on 4 March, 2019

Energy causes Global Warming

michael sweet @218 Big Picture

Volcanoes; yes, very interesting.
But first I wish to make a distinction between sensible heat and radiant heat. Sure they are both forms of heat energy, but they need to be considered differently in the Earth’s system.

Sensible heat is the energy of the molecules in a gas due to their motion; that is their kinetic energy.
Radiant heat is the energy of an emitted electromagnetic photon. In general, this energy is greater than the kinetic energy of a moving molecule.

Radiant energy is due to the vibrations of the atoms and molecules in a solid and a liquid. The so-called “black body” radiation.
The nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the atmosphere do not vibrate, and so they cannot emit radiation. The GHGs, of course, can absorb and thence re-emit photons of infrared energy.

The energy given out by a volcano consists partly of the sensible heat of the gases, and partly radiant energy from the hot lava and adjacent land surfaces, and the hot material particles also ejected. So, the radiant energy can, indeed, be emitted to space.

The sensible heat energy goes mainly into the oceans, as we can see from the Figure 5.4 taken from the IPCC AR4 report and conveniently reproduced for us by MA Rodger in his post @215 Big Picture. Once in the oceans, the energy can then be radiated away to space.

I hope this answers your question satisfactorily.

New research, February 4-10, 2019

Philippe Chantreau at 11:37 AM on 2 March, 2019

I take issue with the "CO2 generation." In fact, only humans truly generate CO2 on Earth on a very large scale, by combining fossil carbon with oxygen. All the other sources of CO2 only cycle and recombine carbon into CO2. The exception is volcanoes, but they release CO2, they don't generate it. There is a large body of science that shows how human produced CO2 is beyond a doubt responsible for the current increase. I don't see anything from nowhearthis that really puts that into doubt. As for his last question, it is sort of asking before the Montreal protocol for definitive proof that phasing out CFCs was going to have a positive effect. Or asking for proof, before the 1960's smallpox immunization campaign that the campaign would have the desired result. Both of these "proofs" would have been absolutely impossible to produce. It is a demand that is impossible to satisfy in any situation.

It is reminiscent of the denier's method that consists of attempting to argue that inferred reasoning has no place in science. Same old.

EV’s: Crucial to Reducing CO2 Emissions

Evan at 01:51 AM on 9 February, 2019

KateAllatRaIPM@10 Earth's orbit varies in 20,000, 40,000, and 100,000 year cycles. This is too slow to explain warming that is occurring at a rate of 0.1-0.2C/decade.

Volcanoes cause warming by emitting CO2 over time periods of 1000's of years. No volcanoes have been seen doing that over the recent 800,000-year ice-records. But you correctly mention volcanoes as a possible source, which they were in the deep past, which means that you should accept that they cause warming through CO2 emissions. They are simply not a problem now because there have not been any large eruptions in the last million years or so.

NASA watches the sun very, very closely, because it can be a problem for their satellites and astronauts. In the satellite era NASA has not recorded any solar activity that could account for the current warming.

Because you accept that volcanoes can cause warming, and because the link between volcanoes and past warming is CO2, then you should appreciate why human CO2 emissions are linked to the current warming by looking at the following graph. Over 400,000 years of ice-core data CO2 goes up and down in a very narrow range of 180-300 ppm. In the last 60 years CO2 has risen 100 ppm, and it is rising 2.5 ppm/year. This is much much faster than volcanoes can emit CO2.

We are the problem.

EV’s: Crucial to Reducing CO2 Emissions

KateAllatRaIPM at 17:24 PM on 8 February, 2019

High CO2 level develops health problem in larger cities and its reduction can definitely be good of our hearts and languages but is it really a major contributor to the greenhouse effect and global warming?

Climate change has been caused by many natural factors, including changes in the sun, volcanoes, Earth’s orbit, and CO2 levels.
Does anyone know the contribution rate for each factor?

Also if climate change is inevitable, what can we do to prepare for it?

Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

MA Rodger at 20:25 PM on 24 January, 2019

bArt @334,

While I agree with the comments @335&336, I would say that the meaning of much of what you write is not at all clear. So let me present what I interpret you as saying along with my own understanding of its context.

You accept the world is warming and are open to "new findings and information" (4), but this is an exceedingly low base from which to establish the reality of AGW.

You don't give a hoot about humanity (1) or other biological life (3) as long as you are not too hot and have oxygen to breath. Interestingly Arrhenius thought that a little more heat would be good for the world, he living in Sweden which is a tad cold come the winter. There was even discussion of setting fire to coal mines so AGW could be created without having to mine the stuff before you burn it. If Arrhenius had lived in the tropics (as do 40% of humanity) or a less Euro-centric world, he would surely have thought differently.

Your need for volcanoes (3) remains a mystery.

The failure of science to nail down ECS more exactly cannot really be seen as a reason to ignore the serious nature of AGW. Identifying the upper limits of ECS is always going to be difficult as a high ECS is only different from a medium ECS after 100 years or so. The work of folk trying their hardest to demonstrate tiny values for ECS (or TCR) and thus to diminish AGW, such work doesn't really hold water outside the narrow constructs they set it out within. So yes, in a narrow sense "the science is actually not yet settled" but the bit of science you rest your faith in (2) is narrower than narrow and those wholly engaged in that sliver of science are simply refusing to leave the last-chance-saloon at closing time.

The relevance of your final sentence in (2) is not evident.

Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

bArt at 13:16 PM on 24 January, 2019

The reason I choose to remain an AGW skeptic at this time is because a series of unscientific but still logical and true facts bring me there by deduction (which is all that readings and models happen to do also).

1. Some warming is preferable to some cooling (humans are warm blooded and do not do well without insulation against the cold (0 deg.C). When I physically begin to feel uncomfortable from the relentless heat, I may then prefer a cooling trend.

2. Positive and negative feedbacks associated with increased water vapor and cloud formation can cancel one another out and complicate matters. The actual balance between them is an active area of climate science research and therefore the science is actually not yet settled. Both oceans and atmosphere are fluid, dynamic and vast and average measurements can only indicate trends.

3. As long as terrestrial and deep ocean volcanoes exist, and as long as I do not have difficulty breathing (O2 supply) then I am not going to worry about how much "heat" biological life (see above) contributes to global warming.

4. I remain open to new findings and information and accept that a GW trend is currently occurring.

Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans

ancient_nerd at 07:15 AM on 1 January, 2019

michael sweet@299

so, the Santa Barbare study does put the end of the glacial about 10,000 years after the eruption. If there was any change in CO2 levels, it would be a tiny blip that may or may not barely stick out of the noise.

I am not sure if I can link to a specific yahoo comment of mine, but here is a paste from this article Anak Krakatau Volcano Erupts in Indonesia.

Measurements from ice core samples show no significant change in CO2 levels after either the Krakatoa or the Tambora eruptions. Volcanoes do inject sulfur into the stratosphere that cools the climate for a few years until it drops out. CO2 has a much longer lifetime in the atmosphere. It takes geological processes thousands of years to stabilize carbon levels.

I could now add to that something like:

There was a massive eruption at Yellowstone 630,000 years ago. It caused massive destruction as it left ash deposits up to 600 feet thick over much of North America. If there was a change in CO2 levels from that, it is barely visible, if at all, in the ice cores.

Thank-you

Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans

michael sweet at 05:09 AM on 1 January, 2019

Ancient Nerd:

In fact I did read the graph incorrectly.

The increase in CO2 is still about 10,000 years after the eruption date.

Reading more background information, I found several articles (BBC Forbes GOOGLE search) that mentioned volcanic winters caused by supervolcanoes but none that mentioned CO2 effects. Several mentioned the Santa Barbara study referenced up thread. The Forbes article suggested that the supervolcano might have delayed the interglacial that was beginning around that time.

I see no supporting information for the idea that CO2 from the volcano caused an increasse in global temperatures.

Climate Carbon Bookkeeping

David Kirtley at 12:37 PM on 31 December, 2018

Dan @4:

1) "had to be...", "I'm sorry it's just too conveniently flat". Perhaps your expectations are unrealistic. Consider that human yearly emissions of CO2 are roughly 100 times greater than the avg. total of yearly volcanic emissions. Volcanic activity would have to increase over 100 times to be comparable to human emissions, which "only" move CO2 up about 2 ppm per year. There just aren't any natural sources which move fast enough to increase or decrease the amount of atmospheric CO2. What the "flat" levels of CO2 over most of the last millennium tell us is that the sources and sinks of CO2 into and out of the atmosphere were mostly in balance.

2) If you click on the source link below the graph you will see this graph:

This shows the CO2 reading for each sample taken from three ice cores on Law Dome in Antarctica. The data in this graph is used to form the smoothed curve in the graph you are asking about. Note that the most recent readings are right in line with the direct atmospheric readings we have of the recent spike in CO2, as in the Keeling Curve. More info on Law Dome, Data.

Unfortunately, there aren't ice cores from "multiple locations around the globe". Thick sheets of ice only form in certain areas so we have to do with what we can get. We have many cores from Greenland and Antarctica and some from alpine glacier regions. The cores from Greenland can't be used for CO2 measurements because of high levels of contamination. So we have to do with the Antarctic cores. Here is a map of those:

I'm not sure if there are any other cores besides the Law Dome cores which give CO2 readings over the last millennium which we can compare. But the Law Dome cores alone are "adequate proof" of atmospheric CO2 concentrations simply because they track the known concentrations measured by the Keeling Curve. The Law Dome cores may be only one "tool" for measuring CO2, but we know the tool works.

3) Indeed, we have cores that reach back 800,000 years into the past. (And some even further, past the 1 million years mark.) (Now I see that michael sweet has also answered your questions!) I'll just point out that over this 800,000 year period CO2 rose and fell naturally by about ~100 ppm as we went from ice ages to warm interglacial periods, and back again.

Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans

michael sweet at 00:28 AM on 31 December, 2018

MARodger,

You cite an interesting paper. It appears to me that volcanic dust and gas caused a winter effect. This is known from recent eruptions. Apparently the effect was longer than might be expected from a volcano.

In any case, the cooling effect is not caused by CO2 release. I think Ancient Nerd was asking if the volcano could have contributed to an increase in global temperatures from release of CO2. It appears to me that an increase in temperature from the CO2 did not occur. The amount of CO2 released was not measurable in the ice record. This demonstrates that release of CO2 from volcanoes, even extraordinarily large ones, does not affect climate.

Volcanoes emit more CO2 than humans

ancient_nerd at 05:04 AM on 30 December, 2018

With the recent tsunami from Anak Krakatoa, there seems to be an increase in discussions of CO2 emissions from volcanoes. I have read that the 1883 Krakatoa and 1816 Tamboora eruptions did not emit enough to affect global CO2 levels in ice core measuremnts.

What about the Yellowstone eruption 670,000 years ago? Do we have any measurements with enough resolution going that far back?

Climate Carbon Bookkeeping

nigelj at 05:12 AM on 21 December, 2018

This guy has done an extremely useful graph from 1900 - 2008 plotting all source of emissions including volcanoes, coal, oil, gas and deforestation along with listing his source material, so it looks credible.

Climate Change Cluedo: Anthropogenic CO2

michael sweet at 07:55 AM on 17 December, 2018

Alonerock,

For #3: Each year humans release into the atmosphere about 24 billion tons of CO2. Those tons are the "atmospheric emissions of CO2". At the end of the 2018 there will be about 12 billion more tons of CO2 in the atmosphere than there was at the end of 2017.

That means that the amount of CO2 that remains in the atmosphere is less than the amount of CO2 that humans emitted. Since the amount of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is less than the amount hmans emitted, all the increase in the atmosphere comes from the human emissions.

The ocean absorbs and emits a lot of CO2 each year, much more than 24 billion tons. That does not contribute to increasing atmpspheric concentration because we know all the increase comes from human emissions. If fact, the ocean absorbs more CO2 from the atmosphere than it emits every year so it is a sink of CO2 and not a source.

The mass balance is the accounting for all the CO2 emitted each year from every source and showing where it goes by the end of the year. The amount emitted and the amount at the end of the year must balance.

For #6, if the CO2 came from volcanoes no oxygen would be used up in generating the CO2 since the CO2 from volcanoes comes out of the volcanoes as CO2. We measure that O2 in the atmosphere is decreasing. This decrease of O2 is just the same amount that would be used to generate the 24 billion tons of CO2 that humans generate each year. That shows that the CO2 in the atmosphere comes from burning fossil fuels and does not come from volcanoes. Volcanoes only emit about 200 million tons of CO2 each year (1% of human emissions) source.

Does that address your questions?

Climate's changed before

Philippe Chantreau at 04:18 AM on 14 December, 2018

Ed says earlier in the thread "changes in solar behavior, volcanism, impacting comets and meteors, seismic activity, and who knows what else would be tough to rule out."

Certainly not for recent times. None of these is a factor in the changes we are currently experiencing. Solar activity is actually lower now than it was in the late 20th century (see related threads where PMOD data can be found). Comets and asteroid strikes have a way of getting noticed. Even tiny nuclear weapon tests in North Korea can be detected by our seismological equipment. "Who knows what else" seems to be falling in the category of cosmic rays and Leprechauns (see applicable thread, except for Leprechauns), rather surprising from one who claims an extensive scientific background.

Perhaps, like a lot of other people, Ed has difficulty accepting that we humans are responsible for a truly geological scale event. Going up in total atmospheric CO2 content by a 100 ppm within the 2ish decades since I started teaching weather for pilots is simply astounding, and a lightining fast geological freak event. Anyone who doesn't see that has a problem with quantitative thinking. Human activity releases about 100 times more CO2 per year than all volcanoes together (see applicable thread). If all of a suddent we started witnessing that kind of volcanic activity, year after year, there would be absolutely no doubt about its scope, consequences, and the urgency of the situation.

2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #49

One Planet Only Forever at 02:45 AM on 10 December, 2018

Here is a recent climate change impact story about a new potential impact issue.

Climate change could wake up Canada's dormant volcanoes The National (video part of News Broadcast), CBC News, Dec 5, 2018 - Scientists at Simon Fraser University argue that climate change is destabilizing volcanoes around the world.

This type of impact is not included in evaluations that try to claim that imposing climate change impacts on future generations is Just Fine (justified). And many already anticipated impacts are excluded because they are 'not certain enough to negatively impact the richest enough to be included in the evaluation'. And even the negative impacts included in those evaluations get 'discounted', meaning they are evaluated speciofically from the perspective of the current day richest.

Those evaluations incorrectly try to claim that the activity today that is creating the future problems will have develop sustainable wealth that grows into the future, gaining a value that exceeds the costs of climate change impacts. My MBA training helps me understand the fallacy of that type of evaluation. Perceptions (or measures) of wealth that are due to unsustainable or harmful activity will not continue to be wealth into the future.

And, in addition to the understanding that current government leaders are being incorrectly influenced to make-up and promote poor excuses for continuing to allow more harm to be done to future generations (to protect incorrectly developed ultimately unsustainable perceptions of prosperity and superiority), winning Leadership is also failing to support added investigation into, and monitoring of, new potential climate change threats like this potential for climate change to result in a major volcanic event to occur near a heavily populated part of Canada far sooner than it would have otherwise occurred.

CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused

MA Rodger at 03:41 AM on 20 October, 2018

chromedome49 @24,

The 45% isn't written in stone. Using the MLO data for atmospheric CO2 and the emissions estimates from Global Carbon Project, the 45% value has remained pretty much the multi-decadal value since 1990. Over the period 1960-90, the Airborne Fraction had been slowly increasing from an early value of 35%.

There are a lot of waggles along the way. Over the period since 1959, annual Airborne Fractions have varied from 20% all the way up to 80%. The El Nino is one big factor in these waggles, as are big tropical volcanoes. Taking multi-year averages, the percentage is still a bit waggly. After the rise to 1990, there was a short sharp dip caused by the eruption of Pinatubo in the early 1990s, a rise into the 2000s due to the high incidence of El Ninos then a dip into the 2010s due to all the La Ninas.

Where the Airborne Fraction goes in coming years? If we begin to reduce the acceleration of our emissions, it should start to drop, and drop quicker if our emissions begin to fall. Mind, all the waggles will prevent a clear sight of any such a drop for some time.

New study reconciles a dispute about how fast global warming will happen

nigelj at 14:35 PM on 25 September, 2018

I agree volcanic activity is clearly not responsible for the modern global warming period. It could only be implicated in the recent global warming period if there was some substantial change in volcanic activity in recent decades compared to earlier decades. Given the quantities of CO2 emitted by volcanoes are quite small compared to human emissions, according to sources mentioned above, there would need to be a very substantial and obvious change.

A quick look at "list of large volcanic eruptions of the 20th century" on wikipedia shows no obvious change in activity between the early part of the 20th century, and the part after 1975 when the "modern" warming period related strongly to CO2 emissions started. Ditto theres no difference in volcanic activity overall between the 19th and 20th centuries. Yes its eyeballing a list but that is sufficient in this case.

This is reasonably basic detective work, so the fact that the "denialists" don't register it looks like wilful ignorance to me in many cases. Head in the sand stuff. I'm so sick and tired of it. We should be able to have grown up conversation with this obvious material on the table, and not disputed and ignored. I'm all for genuine scepticism if its intelligent and evidence based, but I haven't seen any for years now.

New study reconciles a dispute about how fast global warming will happen

Doug_C at 08:31 AM on 25 September, 2018

The simple fact is we are emitting massive amounts of the primary persistent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere every year and some are still trying to find ever more convoluted ways to justify this.

Are Volcanoes or Humans Harder on the Atmosphere?

"This argument that human-caused carbon emissions are merely a drop in the bucket compared to greenhouse gases generated by volcanoes has been making its way around the rumor mill for years. And while it may sound plausible, the science just doesn’t back it up.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the world’s volcanoes, both on land and undersea, generate about 200 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually, while our automotive and industrial activities cause some 24 billion tons of CO2 emissions every year worldwide. Despite the arguments to the contrary, the facts speak for themselves: Greenhouse gas emissions from volcanoes comprise less than one percent of those generated by today’s human endeavors."

If there was a supervolcano or a massive flood basalt somewhere on the Earth's surface would we be debating at all the catastrophic impacts of it emitting 100 times the average amount of CO2 from tectonic activity every year.

We'd be preparing for the same kind of massive die-offs that the geological record indictates are associated with similar events like this in the past.

Something we are already beginning to see on a large scale when you consider the massive and rapid die-offs on the Great Barrier Reef alone.

This is a supervolcano we can shut of and in fact be much better for in terms of air quality, ecological integrity and financial cost.

The Data Says Climate Change Could Cost Investors Trillions

"If we stay on the current emissions path, the study predicts, the value at risk in global portfolios could range from about $2 trillion to $25 trillion. In a bit of understatement, Simon Dietz of the London School of Economics, the lead author of the report, told The Guardian, “long-term investors…would be better off in a low-carbon world.”

Estimates of climate risk in the trillions are unfortunately getting more common. Last year, Citi produced a powerful study of the costs and benefits of shifting the energy system toward low-carbon technologies. Unchecked climate change, Citi said, could cost the world $72 trillion by the middle of the century. But the big surprise in Citi’s report was the cost of building the low-carbon economy: the world can spend $2 trillion less in total on energy infrastructure and ongoing fuel costs than it would in the business-as-usual scenario. So we save $2 trillion and avoid losing up to $72 trillion in economic activity."

Fossil fuels are a lose-lose no matter how contrarians still try and load the dice in the favour of the fossil fuel sector by consistently downplaying the likely impacts of the continued emissions of tens of billions of tons of CO2 a year.

Welcome to the Pliocene

John S at 23:57 PM on 24 August, 2018

is there a simple elevator answer to a question why was the mid-holocene 0.6 to 0.9 degrees warmer than the pre-industrial (if I'm reading the chart right) when the CO2 was a bit lower (260 ppm vs 280 ppm)? ... less volcanoes?

as a supplementary the mid-holocene sea level vs now is shown as N/A which I understand to mean not-applicable probably (I'm guessing) meaning the difference was < 1 metre, but do we have any more precise idea what it was? — I'm guessing lower than now because it wasn't quite as warm, but by an amount < 1 metre , or by an amount within the range of error so we don't really know more than it was about the same (I recall somone'e lecture about Roman fish tanks implying sea level about the same as now)

2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29

Philippe Chantreau at 14:11 PM on 22 July, 2018

Dinahlynns, your post amounts to little more than a Gish gallop and includes some erroneous information. We are "naturally" in a cooling period, but that has been cancelled by human activity. Since you claim a focus on volcanoes, you should be aware of the fact that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are about 100 times that coming of volcanoes; that alone makes our activity a truly geological event. It seems you have a lot more to research and learn before you can form an imformed opinion. There is plenty of references available on the relevant threads on this site and others.

2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29

dinahlynns at 11:29 AM on 22 July, 2018

I’m a.m. new to this site and new to the age of global warming. I have read many many comments and I have done much research on my own. I am not a scientis, yet. As a matter of fact my education is in criminal justice and accounting. Why am I looking for a switch? For the very reason this site exist. There are many unanswered questions. Now please forgive my lack of scientific numbers, charts and graphs. But let me explain it in layman terms, or at least try. From the very second earth was created climate change began. But not until the 1700’s has humans became a variant. Again this is from the point of view of someone who wants to become a volcanologis/climatologist. We need to understand as much about what affects the earth in hopes to replicate it on, let’s say Mars. Between the degree earth is tilted on its axis, volcanic activity and external forces our climate has warmed and cooled. We can hopefully all agree on this. And creatures of all sorts, to include plants, has survived it. CO2 is needed to grow plants. Yes 7th grade earth science stuff. And if my reasearch is accurate please tell me when I’m off and direct me to a more accurate site, the earth’s tilt goes in cycles about roughly every 40,000 years. Right now we are at a 23.5 degree tilt going to a 24.5 degree tilt in about 10,000 years. Again HS science stuff. And the other major factor is volcanIc activity. Then comes into play are ocean currents, jet stream, solar output, external forces such as comets. So right now we are in a warming trend naturally. Ok now we factor in humans and the industrial revolution. now our wonderful planet has survived despite everything that’s been thrown it’s way. So wouldn’t a more accurate assessment be that humans are destroying the environment and not so much climate change? The climate is always changing and the environment has always found a way to thrive. With that in mind, wouldn’t it be more accurate to say what humans are doing in fact is destroying the very thing we need to survive? Climate will change whether or not humans survive. World population is set to double in the next 20 years. We are fighting to protect the environment now. What will doubling the world population do to our now taxed environment. The earth will continue long after humans. And the environment will always survive climate change. Question is what do we do to ensure there’s a viable environment for years to come? I am sorry I am not up to all of the scientific verbiage. I hope to one day be well versed. And yes I have actually done years worth of researching. It’s kind of like performing an audit, except instead of numbers I’m auditing the earth.

Now with that said, the reason I want to be hopefully a volcan climatologist. If we do not properly understand earth, we can not carry it forward as we explore the habitation on another planet. I can give many scenarios how volcanoes have shaped the earth. How the sun has shaped the earth. But I want to learn more. And that is my objective here today.

I was stationed at Andersen AFB, Guam when Mt Pinatubo erupted. So I can and do have appreciation the power of our earth.

There are genuine climate alarmists, but they're not in the same league as deniers

rocketeer at 02:29 AM on 11 July, 2018

The term "Climate Alarmist" is not mutually exclusive form "Climate Science Denier". Search 'Grand Solar Minimum' on youtube and you will find many videos excplicitly rejecting AGW yet warning of impending doom (crop failures, food shortages, starvation) as soon as this year due to the GSM which they are certain is already underway. They are now attributing every natural event from droughts to volcanoes to earthquakes to a solar variation that is still well within the range of behavior over the last century. It is hard to call this anything but alarmist. Compared to these baseless warnings, a calculation that Florida could be submergeed in a few hunded years sounds pretty sober and contemplative.

Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

MA Rodger at 17:07 PM on 10 July, 2018

jesscars @355,

The Ice Age cycles are strange beasts. They are triggered by changes in the solar warming of the Northern Hemisphere (the Milankovitch Cycles) but the climate has to be primed and in an a-stable state for the trigger to work.

And while the trigger is quite a gentle shove to climate, the triggered 'impacts' are big enough to raise global temperatures some 5ºC. The 'impacts' are technically feedbacks forced by the Milankovitch Cycles but it is these feedbacks that do all the work.

Simplistically, the main instability is the polar Ice Age ice caps that begin to melt out, this raising temperatures and destabalising further ice caps. And on the back of this warming, the level of atmospheric CO2 and CH4 will rise.

In the case of CO2, the carbon cycle requires oceans and biosphere to be in equilibrium with the atmosphere. With warming ocean waters, less CO2 can be carried by the warmer water, raising atmospheric CO2 levels which in-turn adds to the warming process. And the frozen biosphere also releases captured CO2 as it melts. (These processes will be at work today under AGW but with only 1ºC of warming in less than a century, the impact of the warming CO2 feedbacks is much less than the 100ppm CO2 Ice Age effect that resulted from much more warming over 8,000 years.) In very simple terms, that answers "Why does CO2 change over time i.e. where does it come from, where does it go?" Volcanoes do emit CO2 but it is only very exceptionally (within the billion year planet's history) that volcanism has elevated atmospheric CO2 by anything of significance.

Climate's changed before

scaddenp at 13:58 PM on 10 July, 2018

Responding to jesscars from here:

Sigh, "OK, so you are saying that the effect of CO2 on the temperature is only minor. "

No, he was saying the CO2 direct contribution to ice ages is 0.5C. Mostly it is an amplifier (feedback) converting a change in northern NH albedo into global event.

Historically CO2 can change for many reasons, depending on which events you are talking about. Volcanoes, change to sea temperature (CO2 solubility), changes to vegatation cover, long term carbon sequestration in rock, freeze/thaw of tundra swamps, operating on time periods of seasons to eons. The pliestocene ice-age cycle is driven by milankovich.

Climate is always a response to sum of all forcings. (solar input, albedo, aerosols, GHGs). Past climates are considered by looking at what changes to all of them. Complicating matters is that temperature change triggers feedbacks - you cant change temperature without also changing CO2, CH4, water vapour and albedo.

Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

jesscars at 13:36 PM on 10 July, 2018

Hi MA,

> jesscars @343,

The relative strength of CO2 as a GHG is dependent on the logarithmic nature of its forcing. The first doubling will, molecule for molecule, be twice as 'forceful' as the second doubling and a thousand times more 'forceful' than the tenth doubling. So the 'forcefulness' you measure in the High-CO2 bag will be mainly a thousand-times weaker than the CO2 'forcefulness' involved in AGW. And while the ten doublings of CO2 together will provide a very 'forceful' GHG effect at 15 microns, (By-the-way, I note my 12 microns @340 is wrong - it is 15 microns.) this is achieved by stripping all GHG from everywhere else. This one-step-warmer-one-step-cooler effect for the bag world could well explain the non-result although there could be many other contributing reasons.

I agree with this. I repeated the experiment last night with about 2% CO2 or 20,000 or 5-6 doublings. (I.e. enough to get an effect from CO2 without diluting the effect of H2O.) The bag with CO2 was 0.5 degrees warmer during the night, outside. The difference disappeared in the morning.

> jesscars @347,

Your comparison of the 1ºC of warming for double CO2 (without feedbacks) with the Vostok Ice Core temperature/CO2 graph doesn't properly hold. Firstly, the Vostok temperatures will be subject to polar amplification and Ice Ages result from other non-CO2 'forcings' (CH4, ice albedo) and their feedbacks. The direct CO2 contribution (without feedbacks) to the Ice Age cycles (which are globally some 5ºC) is probably something like 0.5ºC, which fits in with the logarithmic relationship. With feedbacks, the CO2 'forcing' is responsible for about a third of the Ice Age wobbles.

OK, so you are saying that the effect of CO2 on the temperature is only minor. If so, then what explains the correlation? Why would the other factors that contribute to temperature change move/fall at the same time as CO2? This is obviously not chance, so whatever affects the CO2 must also affect those other factors in order to get that correlation. Has this been proven by empirical research?

(Also, what is the cause of historic atmospheric CO2 change? I've heard several contradictory answers I.e. Milankovitch Effect or volcanoes. Why does CO2 change over time i.e. where does it come from, where does it go?)

2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #21

Bob Loblaw at 11:32 AM on 29 May, 2018

Of course,, the "it's volcanoes" argument was also used for stratospheric ozone damage, too. The volcanoes put out more chlorine, etc., than come from CFCs.. (No, they don't.) It's as if they just did a search-and-replace on the ozone anti-science articles.

2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #21

nigelj at 14:12 PM on 28 May, 2018

Volcanoes just don't emit enough CO2 to explain global warming over the last several decades. The magma from volcanoes does have a lot of dissolved gases including CO2, however emissions from fossil fuels are approximately 100 times greater, and emissions from volcanoes have been measured in multiple ways. The keeling curve is also smooth, rather than punctuated by peaks when volcanoes explode.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/earthtalks-volcanoes-or-humans/

Its also a question of what explains the increased atmospheric levels of CO2 in the keeling curve . I was as curious as anyone, so last year I did some digging. Volcanic activity has just not increased over the period when CO2 levels have significantly increased, so volcanoes cannot be the source of the growth of CO2. Look up "list of large volcanic eruptions of the 19th century on wikipedia" and ditto for the 20th century. There are no clear differences between the two centuries overall, although if anything the 19th century had a couple more really large eruptions. I'm not aware of any evidence of significant changes in undersea volcanic activity.

Generally volcanic activity is reasonably regular on these time scales which is not surprising given its a release of pressure from a regular sort of process beneath the crust.

Unfortunately people listen to other people on talk back radio or websites that spread climate denial ignorance, but who sound plausible and confident. I'm a strong freedom of speech advocate, but this ignorance is now on a huge scale.

Climate change is already making droughts worse

Loki at 22:31 PM on 23 May, 2018

Anomalous Synergies

Stratosphere = 10-50 km

Troposphere = 0-10 km

Lower stratospheric ozone declines are biggest between 60° South and 60° North. I will refer to this area as mid latitude which includes the tropics. The tropics are 50% of human habitat.

Lower stratospheric ozone is much more abundant than the high stratospheric ozone at the poles, where ozone depletion has somewhat ceased. This abundance makes mid latitude ozone more important to us than high altitude polar ozone.

Mid latitude/lower stratospheric ozone depletion causes more damage to DNA in plants, animals and humans because radiation is more intense in these regions and more people live there. I believe that stronger winds are sending more ozone killing gas into lower stratospheric mid latitude areas.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180206090709.htm

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wait-the-ozone-layer-is-still-declining1/

Ground ozone (tropospheric) ozone is a pollutant that is harmful to breathe and toxic to plants. It is also the 3rd most abundant greenhouse gas, not including water vapor I believe. Ground-level ozone pollution is already decreasing global crop yields from 2–6% for maize to 4–15%, and 9–14% for wheat and soybeans. Ground ozone visibly harms foliage and reduces their ability to suck carbon out of the air. North American emissions can affect ozone-induced yield losses in Europe. I believe increased winds are destroying stratospheric ozone. This is complicated by the fact that Asia may be cheating on the Montreal Ozone Protocol.

How is ozone pollution reducing our food supply? - Scary stuff.
https://academic.oup.com/jxb/article/63/2/527/504895

Emissions of banned ozone-destroying chemical on the rise
http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/environment/emissions-of-banned-ozone-destroying-chemical-on-the-rise/article/522644

Oceans currently suck up boatloads of ozone, but as Asia increases nitrous oxide emissions from farms and cars, these ocean ozone sinks will turn into ozone sources.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14211-tropical-ocean-sucks-up-vast-amounts-of-ozone/

Earth's magnetic field has a big hole below the equator that stretches from Chile to Zimbabwe Africa. I imagine chunks of Cratons (huge upside-down mountains) break off and swirl around enough to upset steady magnetic field generation, which may or not be temporary. This area between South America and Africa is the same area affected by ozone depletion. The combination of ozone depletion and a weakening magnetic field will be doubly deleterious to plants and humans in those areas from space radiation because it takes both tropospheric ozone and a strong magnetic field to protect mid latitudes from the sun and space radiation threats.

Water from the tundra and polar ice is moving to the equator, so much so that it lowers polar gravity and slows down earth's crust relative to its core. The rebounding and slowing crust has a double whammy effect on earth quakes and volcanoes. Volcanoes are extremely sensitive to nearby water and ice pressures.

A Mysterious Anomaly Under Africa Is Radically Weakening Earth's Magnetic Field

https://www.sciencealert.com/something-mysterious-under-southern-africa-dramatically-weakening-earth-s-magnetic-field-south-atlantic-anomaly

More volcanoes and quakes are expected this year. When volcanoes go off, they emit sulphur which destroys ozone.

2018 may be the year the earth slows and the world panics
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/100345652/2018-may-be-the-year-the-earth-slows-and-the-world-panics

How future volcanic eruptions will impact Earth's ozone layer
https://phys.org/news/2017-08-future-volcanic-eruptions-impact-earth.html

What's important to the ozone are volcanic halogens. Scientists are just starting to figure out how important halogens are to their models. A good burst of volcanic halogens means you can kiss that ozone goodbye. Dire indeed.

The 2 top causes of civil collapse are drought and volcanic ash. We got lots of both this year. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated

NorrisM at 15:20 PM on 11 April, 2018

Glenn Tamblyn @ 65

I have now read the De Conto & Pollard paper which clearly has had a major influence on the increase of the upper estimate in the US Climate Report to 130 cm. This paper is very technical and I will not pretend to be able to evaluate it. But on a "risk" basis the US Climate Report places a very low percentage on any significant impact at least up to 2100.

Perhaps discussion of the WAIS has to be located somewhere else even though it directly impacts sea level rise which is the topic of this blog. Any suggestions where? I see Philippe Chantreau has referenced a paper which is paywalled.

I have now read a couple of papers on possible geothermal impacts in this area and I now see they are only talking about the identification of former volcanoes and do not suggest that there are presently open rifts causing any heating.

Burning coal may have caused Earth’s worst mass extinction

nigelj at 10:13 AM on 16 March, 2018

MS thank's for that research paper.

It's pretty clear to me that there was a large increase of CO2 during the late permian. That is the most important thing, even if we dont know the exact ppm.

Sources of both volcanoes and coal make it pretty compelling to me. And it appears considerable methane was also released as well as sulphur oxides and volcanic ash etc. The period seems like a sort of hell on earth, and I dont think thats hyperbole.

This article is from Peter Ward, a reputable paleontologist, includes a graph with a huge spike in CO2 levels in the late permian. The graph also shows a remarkable correlation between multiple extinction events over millions of years and peaks of CO2 levels. I have no idea how correct this information is, but it's interesting, and he is not a crank or arm chair expert.

Burning coal may have caused Earth’s worst mass extinction

nigelj at 06:40 AM on 14 March, 2018

Aleks @10

"Can high level of mercury and lead in the rock samples be considered as a proof of coal burning? I don't think so: it could be a result of thermal decomposition of lead and mercury containing minerals during volcanoes eruptions."

I doubt it. The concentrations in the actual rock samples they found are apparently higher than expected to naturally occur. The research team almost certainly would have considered the possibility you describe, and looked at concentrations of lead and mercury you would expect from volcanic igneous rocks breaking down, against the samples they actually found.

Also the featured article says "Lead and mercury aren't associated with volcanic ash, but they are a byproduct of burning coal."

Burning coal may have caused Earth’s worst mass extinction

aleks at 02:07 AM on 14 March, 2018

“The culprit: burning coal”.
Can high level of mercury and lead in the rock samples be considered as a proof of coal burning? I don't think so: it could be a result of thermal decomposition of lead and mercury containing minerals during volcanoes eruptions.
“Its sulfur emissions created acid rain to kill forests”. More exactly, sulfur dioxide, not sulfur. SO2 is a toxic gas that may kill both vegetable and animal life, especially together with acid rains, and also acidify water (much more than CO2).
The statement about the combustion of large quantities of coal in the Permian period is not confirmed by CO2 concentration data (~210 ppm):
http://www.biocab.org/Carbon_Dioxide_Geological_Timescale.html

James Powell is wrong about the 99.99% AGW consensus

scaddenp at 10:46 AM on 14 February, 2018

If you are actually interesting in volcanic contributions to atmospheric CO2, then try

Burton, M.R., Sawyer, G.M., Granieri, D. (2013). Deep carbon emissions from volcanoes. Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, 75, 323–354.

and

Gerlach, T. (2011). Volcanic versus anthropogenic carbon dioxide. EOS, 92(24), 201–202

James Powell is wrong about the 99.99% AGW consensus

scaddenp at 10:41 AM on 14 February, 2018

Atc - I would argue that studies on Lake Nyos disaster are of almost no relevance. From a climatic point of view, the interesting no. is how much CO2 is released on average from volcanoes and whether that is changing. Studies of a highly localized eruption like Nyos contributes almost nothing except when the context of global inventories. Papers on global inventories of CO2 from lakes are another story.

James Powell is wrong about the 99.99% AGW consensus

Atc at 05:07 AM on 14 February, 2018

With the AI program, we wouldn’t be searching just for climate change or global warming. We can be searching in other fields such glacier science, volcanology, oceanography, etc. So what we want is for the AI program to be looking for relevance to the topic of global warming or climate change. For instance, carbon dioxide in lakes or submarine volcanoes. They may not have a position on global warming but may be relevant. Just a thought. Don’t know if it will clarify anything or just muddy it more.

There's no correlation between CO2 and temperature

NorrisM at 04:47 AM on 8 February, 2018

MA Rodger @ 177

I am somewhat confused by the discussion between MA Rodger and strop regarding what the temperature rise has been since the 1880's. My understanding is that MA Rodger suggests that it has increased from .8C to 1C as of now.

But on Feb 4, MA Rodger on the "There is no empirical evidence" blog, he stated the following for 2016:

"Using a modern global surface record to fill in recent decades (BEST was to hand) and aligning it with the tag end of the Loehle and McCulloch data (1850-1935), the temperature for 2016 would be plotted at +1.2ºC which is plainly off the graph."

If the yearly temperature can jump up and down by .2C per year then do we not really have to use a minimum 10 year period in anything we talk about? I appreciate that El Nino's and La Nina's, as well as volcanoes, complicates looking at what temperature rise we have had over this period. But is even an average over a 10 year period relevant? Look at the famous "hiatus".

2017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #52

nigelj at 14:36 PM on 1 January, 2018

Zippi @62, Spencer is not simply an intelligent meterologist. He is a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA's Aqua satellite. According to wikipedia.

He is also a creationist who believes humans are too insignificant in gods creation to cause climate change. Again, you can read this on his wikipedia profile page.

"I also know where emissions come from,"

Well you apparently don't. I can tell you where they don't come from: The oceans, humans, and volcanoes and theres plenty of information on this in the "most used climate myths" part of this website.

There's no empirical evidence

NorrisM at 03:18 AM on 1 January, 2018

Moderator

That was why I was asking for some estimate of warming from two periods, 1950 and 1975. Perhaps the two periods should be from 1950 and 1970.

I agree that the rate from 1950 at least would be more relevant. It would be interesting to look at 1970 but we then get into shorter periods which themselves have problems.

I appreciate my question on models might be getting "off topic" but these questions on the rate of temperature increase certainly relate to "empirical evidence".

Perhaps this is just impossible to do because of other factors such as the aerosols, volcanoes, ENSO etc. I think I read somewhere on this website that ocean temperature increases are a better measure. Surely there are some papers on this because it is such an obvious question.

Are there studies to show accelerating ocean temperatures?

Scientists debate experimenting with climate hacking to prevent catastrophe

michael sweet at 07:34 AM on 27 December, 2017

Aaron Davis,

On this current thread people are discussing how volcanoes cool the Earth. Volcanoes cool the Earth by releasing large amounts of SO2 into the stratosphere. The experiment has been done and SO2 cools the Earth.

Your claim that SO2 does not cool the Earth is uninformed ranting. Look at the data that thread if you have any questions.

Scientists have beaten down the best climate denial argument

NorrisM at 16:36 PM on 26 December, 2017

nigelj @ 1

I agree with you that modelling our climate system seems to be very challenging. There is a fascinating exchange going on between Patrick Brown and Nic Lewis on the Climate Etc website relating to the Brown and Caldiera paper. It is a very respectful discussion between these two. There are a number of bloggers who have thanked Brown for venturing onto that blog to defend his paper. For the climate scientists on this website I highly recommend it to them.

Attempting to understand this dialogue between Brown and Lewis just confirms my view that I have to leave the relevance of global climate models to the experts. It is hopeless for someone without a lot of science behind them to even begin to understand these issues. I have to admit that trying to debate this issue on a Red Team Blue Team exercise televised to the American public would put everyone to sleep because they would have no idea what they are talking about. Not that a Red Team Blue Team seems to be in the works in any event.

The underlying "niggle" I have in seeing the success of the models predict actual observations (or within 10-15%) is the "tuning" that has gone into the models before they have been submitted to the IPCC for acceptance into the group of models "averaged" to come up with their predictions (or is it projections?). If this "tuning" was only to insert actual values for volcanoes and El Ninos then that is fine but the IPCC has acknowledged that they do not investigate what considerations have been taken into account as part of the tuning. If someone requests an citation for my last comment, I can provide it.

CO2 emissions do not correlate with CO2 concentration

michael sweet at 22:02 PM on 22 November, 2017

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.

What do Jellyfish teach us about climate change?

MA Rodger at 07:53 AM on 21 November, 2017

The statement @19 that "we know about increase of CO2 in atmosphere after industrial revolution, and we know that emission of SO2 and NO2 also increased significantly at the same time," deserves critical assessment.

We do indeed know that anthropogenic CO2 emissions (which are not balanced by absorption) are 100x bigger than natural ones. Increases in SO2 and NO2 are less widely known.

However as the graph below shows, we can say for SO2 that annual anthropogenic SO2 emissions peaked at some 70Mt(S). These are not 100x the natural emissions which are estimated by Fischer (2008) to be 100Mt(S). Thus peak man-made SO2 emissions did not even exceed the natural emissions.

The values for NO2 have not appeared so easily butfor NO & NO2 we can say that "Globally, quantities of nitrogen oxides produced naturally (by bacterial and volcanic action and lightning) far outweigh anthropogenic (man-made) emissions."

The F13 files, part 1 - the copy/paste job

Daniel Bailey at 09:45 AM on 21 October, 2017

"increased heat flow into the oceans"

The oceans are warming, top-down. If increased heat flow into the oceans from subaerial volcanoes were the cause, we'd expect to not only see warming more botton-up, but we'd have to invent a whole new branch of physics to explain why rising concentrations of atmospheric CO2 aren't warming the oceans.

Per Cheng et al 2017:

"OHC has increased fairly steadily and, since 1990, has increasingly involved deeper layers of the ocean. In addition, OHC changes in six major oceans are reliable on decadal timescales.
All ocean basins examined have experienced significant warming since 1998, with the greatest warming in the southern oceans, the tropical/subtropical Pacific Ocean, and the tropical/subtropical Atlantic Ocean."

And:

"The new result (Fig. 6) suggests a total full-depth ocean warming of 33.5 ± 7.0 × 1022 J (equal to a net heating of 0.37 ± 0.08W/m2 over the global surface and over the 56-year period) from 1960 to 2015, with 36.5, 20.4, 30.3, and 12.8% contributions from the 0- to 300-m, 300-to 700-m, 700- to 2000-m, and below 2000-m layers, respectively."

Cheng et al 2017

Larger image HERE.

Global climate impacts of a potential volcanic eruption of Mount Agung

nigelj at 18:15 PM on 17 October, 2017

Im no chemist, but it's just several articles and research papers say SO2 converts to sulphuric acid and is a big factor in cooling, along with dust. I'm reluctant to think that would be wrong, unless someone has compelling evidence. Basic chemistry like this is rarely wrong

SO2 can convert in gaseous form to SO3, and to sulphuric acid, its just very slow and probably not hugely significant. Most of the conversion would be another quicker easier pathway through water, I go along with that. Don't volcanoes blow out a lot of water vapour pretty high up?

Global climate impacts of a potential volcanic eruption of Mount Agung

MA Rodger at 20:59 PM on 15 October, 2017

aleks @41.
The comment by Eclectic @30 you are referring to evidently concerned the greenhouse properties of SO2 (specifically in the stratosphere). Thus it would concern the lifetime of SO2 in the stratosphere alone. This stratospheric SO2 lifetime is significantly longer than the tropospheric SO2 lifetime, a few weeks rather than a few days. And, as set out up-thread by Eclectic @22 (which you apparently "did not find"), the aerosols resulting from stratospheric SO2 persist for much longer, many weeks, a few months or potentially a couple of years or so, this being dependent on the aerosol size, height and location. See for instance Kleinschmitt et al (2017).

In your citing (& your misquoting) of the OP, the OP noted that the geographical location of the volcanic eruption is a factor, the volcanoes discussed being "all located in the tropics close to the Equator, which allows the sulfur dioxide injected into the stratosphere to spread easily across the hemisphere." This is not the case for volcanoes further from the equator (eg. like the 1980 Mt St Helens eruption).

Global climate impacts of a potential volcanic eruption of Mount Agung

Bob Loblaw at 10:55 AM on 13 October, 2017

aleks:

I don't know where you are getting your information, but it is way, way out of date. The myth that "volcanoes eruptions could be an important cause of ozone layer depletion" was doing the rounds over 20 years ago. Before the World Wide Web was popular, there was Usenet and news groups. The FAQ on ozone myths was produced way back then.

http://faqs.cs.uu.nl/na-dir/ozone-depletion/idx.html

Look at part II. It's 20 years old (last update), but the debunking of your myth is probably older than some of the people reading this web site.

Please try to catch up.

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