The Coming Paradigm Shift on Climate

[sylas]

The sum of carbon in the entire planet plus atmosphere doesn't change (though atomic number is changed afaik).

If you are going to talk about mass number and atomic number, then this isn't quite true.

Mass numbers and atomic numbers can only change by nuclear reactions. Excepting some rare processes, the amount of carbon on Earth is constant; and the mass and the atomic numbers don't change either. Some processes can give a slight "fractionation", with more of one isotope than another concentrating in different carbon reservoirs; but this doesn't involve any nuclear changes; only sorting of what variation already exists.

Exceptions will change BOTH mass and atomic numbers. The big example in the carbon cycle involves carbon-14.

Cosmic rays from space will add new carbon to the atmosphere in the form of C14. This is the basis of radiocarbon dating. What happens is that a cosmic ray produces neutrons, and neutrons hit a Nitrogen-14 atom (which has seven neutrons and seven protons; mass number 14 and atomic number 7). The collision knocks out one photon and absorbs the neutron, to give an atomic with eight neutrons and six protons. This is carbon 14, with mass number 14 and atomic number 6. The proton soon enough picks up an electron and becomes normal hydrogen.

Carbon 14 is radioactive; it undergoes beta decay, emitting an electron so that one of the protons becomes a neutron; this turns it back into Nitrogen 14.

As well as this, there are a couple of other natural radioactive processes that can produce or destroy carbon. This involves tiny amounts of no significance to the total amount of carbon. It can, however, be useful for tracing carbon as it moves around the carbon cycle. Fossil carbon (coal, oil, etc) has slightly less carbon-13 than carbon in the fast parts of the carbon cycle of the ocean, atmosphere and soils. This is because of fractionation in the photosynthesis process. In any case, this means observations of changes in atmospheric C13 levels are direct proof that carbon increases in the atmosphere are from fossil fuel use; not from the ocean.

We know this in any case simply because we know how much fossil fuel is being used; but even if we had no idea how much fossil fuel is being burned around the world we would still have the Suess effect as proof that this is the source of the additional atmospheric carbon.

I recently started composing a brief introduction to the carbon cycle as an answer to Teal's question; I'll probably get around to posting in sometime soon; though I gather the original question is now answered to Teal's satisfaction by Carrikature? I endorse the notion of constant carbon, and processes simply moving carbon between reservoirs in atmosphere, ocean, biosphere, soils, rocks and sediments.

Cheers all -- sylas

[Carrikature]

If you are going to talk about mass number and atomic number, then this isn't quite true.

Mass numbers and atomic numbers can only change by nuclear reactions. Excepting some rare processes, the amount of carbon on Earth is constant; and the mass and the atomic numbers don't change either. Some processes can give a slight "fractionation", with more of one isotope than another concentrating in different carbon reservoirs; but this doesn't involve any nuclear changes; only sorting of what variation already exists.

Exceptions will change BOTH mass and atomic numbers. The big example in the carbon cycle involves carbon-14.

Cosmic rays from space will add new carbon to the atmosphere in the form of C14. This is the basis of radiocarbon dating. What happens is that a cosmic ray produces neutrons, and neutrons hit a Nitrogen-14 atom (which has seven neutrons and seven protons; mass number 14 and atomic number 7). The collision knocks out one photon and absorbs the neutron, to give an atomic with eight neutrons and six protons. This is carbon 14, with mass number 14 and atomic number 6. The proton soon enough picks up an electron and becomes normal hydrogen.

Carbon 14 is radioactive; it undergoes beta decay, emitting an electron so that one of the protons becomes a neutron; this turns it back into Nitrogen 14.

As well as this, there are a couple of other natural radioactive processes that can produce or destroy carbon. This involves tiny amounts of no significance to the total amount of carbon. It can, however, be useful for tracing carbon as it moves around the carbon cycle. Fossil carbon (coal, oil, etc) has slightly less carbon-13 than carbon in the fast parts of the carbon cycle of the ocean, atmosphere and soils. This is because of fractionation in the photosynthesis process. In any case, this means observations of changes in atmospheric C13 levels are direct proof that carbon increases in the atmosphere are from fossil fuel use; not from the ocean.

We know this in any case simply because we know how much fossil fuel is being used; but even if we had no idea how much fossil fuel is being burned around the world we would still have the Suess effect as proof that this is the source of the additional atmospheric carbon.

I recently started composing a brief introduction to the carbon cycle as an answer to Teal's question; I'll probably get around to posting in sometime soon; though I gather the original question is now answered to Teal's satisfaction by Carrikature? I endorse the notion of constant carbon, and processes simply moving carbon between reservoirs in atmosphere, ocean, biosphere, soils, rocks and sediments.

Cheers all -- sylas

Thanks, this was very enlightening. Even if Teal is satisfied, I'd be interested in seeing your intro to the carbon cycle. I've clearly a lot to learn.

[John Reece]

a blog post by John Hinderaker at Powerline:

The catastrophic anthropogenic global warming theory is based entirely on models, which are programmed by their creators to predict disaster. But we know for a fact that the models are wrong, because they disagree with reality. When the facts collide with a theory, the facts win.

Here is the concluding paragraph that follows a presentation of examples of the scientific method applied to the recently-produced National Climate Assessment (NCA):

[sylas]

Thanks, this was very enlightening. Even if Teal is satisfied, I'd be interested in seeing your intro to the carbon cycle. I've clearly a lot to learn.

Flattery will get you... everywhere. Here's the promised intro.

Um, okay - I don't quite get the 'adding' thing - we can't technically 'add' anything to the system since we're just using the stuff already here. Most of the carbon we're releasing came from organic sources, right? So, didn't it originally belong in the atmosphere?

For the record, I'm not working on a point - I'm trying to get a better grasp of the thing.

Sure; no problem. Your question is really about the carbon cyclereservoirs of carbon are the different pools of carbon currently in one of the various forms. The processes moving carbon between reservoirs can be fast, or slow; and the reservoirs have different sizes.

Where carbon is found

1. Lithosphere: (geological formations and rocks)
2. Hydrosphere: (water bodies; especially the oceans)
3. Soils

• Carbon is bound as litter, humus, peat, bacteria and fungi and so on.

4. Biomass (part of living things)

• Terrestrial plants, especially wood in trees. This is the largest biomass reservoir.
• Ocean microorganisms: sometimes classified as part of the ocean reservoir.
• Other living things.

5. Atmosphere

• Nearly all as carbon dioxide, with a small amount from traces of methane and other gases.

How carbon moves around the reservoirs

There are various processes at work which move carbon between these reservoirs. Basically these divide into two kinds:

• "fast" cycles of the biosphere, mainly involving respiration and comparatively rapid transport of mobile carbon in soil, vegetation and water.
• "slow" geological cycles, moving carbon in and out of geological deposits.

Major processes in the fast cycles include:

• Photosynthesis: plants take carbon out of the atmosphere, and energy from sunlight to make energy for themselves (as carbohydrates)
• Litter fall: vegetation dies, or sheds leaves and other parts, and this incorporates carbon into soils.
• Respiration: plants emit carbon dioxide again as they use their internal carbohydrates, soils emit carbon dioxide as microorganisms decompose organic litter in soils.
• Gaseous exchange between air and water. Carbon dixoide disolves into water, and it emitted back out of solution into the air, at the boundaries of air and water, especially in the oceans.

In the slow cycles:

• Geological processes: weathering and erosion may release carbon from rocks into soil, or dissolved into water. Sedimentation may cement soils into much more stable rock formation, and also collects as sediment on the ocean floor. Plate tectonics can carry carbon bearing sediments down into the mantle, and volcanic processes can release geological carbon back to the atmosphere.

The size of reservoirs and flows between them

Here's a diagram from GLOBE carbon project showing the sizes of major reservoirs and flows. Reservoirs are in blue, flows are in red. Blue numbers are Gigatons, red numbers are Gigatons/year. (A gigaton is a billion tons of carbon, also called a petagram, or Pg.)


Some points to note, on magnitudes.

The "fast" cycles involve enormous amounts of carbon shifting every year, working in a closed loop to distribute carbon around the biosphere, atmosphere, soils and oceans. The magnitudes of the fluxes are much larger than the human fossil fuel burning. This means that what we are adding to the atmosphere very rapidly circulates around the ocean, vegetation and soils.

The fossil fuel flux, given here as 7.7 Gt/year (the average over 2000-2009) removes carbon out of the geological reserves and the slow carbon cycle, and into the atmosphere where it becomes part of the fast cycles. The result is an ongoing net increase in carbon in the atmosphere and ocean especially. Another human impact is deforestation, which is effectively reducing the size of the vegetation reservoir within the fast carbon cycle.

The gas exchange fluxes between ocean and air are temperature dependent. As temperatures increase, water holds less carbon, and this is the basis of saying warming can release carbon from the ocean. This is almost certainly a very important factor as we move and and out of the ice ages. It means that small warming effects get amplified; as the world warms coming out of the ice age this also releases carbon from the ocean, and generates even more warming. At present however, the large addition of carbon to the atmosphere gives a large imbalance in the chemical equilibrium. Hence, even though the ocean is warming, it is still absorbing more carbon simply because the atmosphere is so overloaded with carbon. The equilibrium chemical reactions still result in a net flow into the ocean.

Cheers -- sylas

[Truthseeker]

Paraphrasing parts of an op-ed by Alwin Lowi:

As the Earth came out of the Little Ice Age (ca. 1800, in the early Industrial Era), the ocean warmed up also, releasing CO2 into the atmosphere. (The next sentence is based on what I think Lowi had in mind.) The human contribution to the CO2 content of the atmosphere is not well known, but is probably minuscule.

"If [something] is debatable, it is not fit subject matter for legislation." But government's nature is to conquer or enslave people, so its wheels continue to grind on regardless.

[Chicken Little comes in for yet more bashing.]

May I point out that Lowi wasn't totally wrong. Before we pumped so much CO2 into the air, higher temperatures meant more release of CO2 from the oceans, right, Sylas? But now the air is so full of CO2 that the relationship between temperature and CO2 levels in the oceans is deranged.

[John Reece]

The Coming Paradigm Shift on Climate

unsettled[url=http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/articlein a paper published last year[/url]

We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW [Anthropogenic Global Warming], 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. [Emphasis added.]

Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus.

blogger Brandon ShollenbergerSteve McIntyre of ClimateAudit has more, including a link to the inevitable Hitler parody video. But just remember this: 4 out of 5 claims by the Climatistas are self-serving political tommyrot. (And more here from The Daily Caller.)

[Teallaura]

Thanks, this was very enlightening. Even if Teal is satisfied, I'd be interested in seeing your intro to the carbon cycle. I've clearly a lot to learn.

I am, too! My immediate question was answered but I'd be interested in seeing more.

[sylas]

I am, too! My immediate question was answered but I'd be interested in seeing more.

Teallaura, my #424 above was the attempt to give some of that more.

In brief: when we "add" carbon to the system, what we are doing is taking carbon out of geological reservoirs, and putting it into atmospheric reservoirs.

From atmospheric reservoirs it rapidly circulates through vegetation, soils and the ocean as well; but it takes a long long time to draw back down into geological reservoirs. Eventually, though, that is what will happen, over many thousands of years.

Cheers -- sylas

[John Reece]

The Coming Paradigm Shift on Climate

THE IDEAL CLIMATE CITIZEN? NORTH KOREA

by Stephen Hayward

Snip

http://www.powerlineblog.com/admin/e.../figure8.3.png

All we have to do to satisfy the climate fanatics is ban electricity.

[Carrikature]

Flattery will get you... everywhere. Here's the promised intro.



Sure; no problem. Your question is really about the carbon cyclereservoirs of carbon are the different pools of carbon currently in one of the various forms. The processes moving carbon between reservoirs can be fast, or slow; and the reservoirs have different sizes.

Where carbon is found

1. Lithosphere: (geological formations and rocks)
2. Hydrosphere: (water bodies; especially the oceans)
3. Soils

• Carbon is bound as litter, humus, peat, bacteria and fungi and so on.

4. Biomass (part of living things)

• Terrestrial plants, especially wood in trees. This is the largest biomass reservoir.
• Ocean microorganisms: sometimes classified as part of the ocean reservoir.
• Other living things.

5. Atmosphere

• Nearly all as carbon dioxide, with a small amount from traces of methane and other gases.

How carbon moves around the reservoirs

There are various processes at work which move carbon between these reservoirs. Basically these divide into two kinds:

• "fast" cycles of the biosphere, mainly involving respiration and comparatively rapid transport of mobile carbon in soil, vegetation and water.
• "slow" geological cycles, moving carbon in and out of geological deposits.

Major processes in the fast cycles include:

• Photosynthesis: plants take carbon out of the atmosphere, and energy from sunlight to make energy for themselves (as carbohydrates)
• Litter fall: vegetation dies, or sheds leaves and other parts, and this incorporates carbon into soils.
• Respiration: plants emit carbon dioxide again as they use their internal carbohydrates, soils emit carbon dioxide as microorganisms decompose organic litter in soils.
• Gaseous exchange between air and water. Carbon dixoide disolves into water, and it emitted back out of solution into the air, at the boundaries of air and water, especially in the oceans.

In the slow cycles:

• Geological processes: weathering and erosion may release carbon from rocks into soil, or dissolved into water. Sedimentation may cement soils into much more stable rock formation, and also collects as sediment on the ocean floor. Plate tectonics can carry carbon bearing sediments down into the mantle, and volcanic processes can release geological carbon back to the atmosphere.

The size of reservoirs and flows between them

Here's a diagram from GLOBE carbon project showing the sizes of major reservoirs and flows. Reservoirs are in blue, flows are in red. Blue numbers are Gigatons, red numbers are Gigatons/year. (A gigaton is a billion tons of carbon, also called a petagram, or Pg.)


Some points to note, on magnitudes.

The "fast" cycles involve enormous amounts of carbon shifting every year, working in a closed loop to distribute carbon around the biosphere, atmosphere, soils and oceans. The magnitudes of the fluxes are much larger than the human fossil fuel burning. This means that what we are adding to the atmosphere very rapidly circulates around the ocean, vegetation and soils.

The fossil fuel flux, given here as 7.7 Gt/year (the average over 2000-2009) removes carbon out of the geological reserves and the slow carbon cycle, and into the atmosphere where it becomes part of the fast cycles. The result is an ongoing net increase in carbon in the atmosphere and ocean especially. Another human impact is deforestation, which is effectively reducing the size of the vegetation reservoir within the fast carbon cycle.

The gas exchange fluxes between ocean and air are temperature dependent. As temperatures increase, water holds less carbon, and this is the basis of saying warming can release carbon from the ocean. This is almost certainly a very important factor as we move and and out of the ice ages. It means that small warming effects get amplified; as the world warms coming out of the ice age this also releases carbon from the ocean, and generates even more warming. At present however, the large addition of carbon to the atmosphere gives a large imbalance in the chemical equilibrium. Hence, even though the ocean is warming, it is still absorbing more carbon simply because the atmosphere is so overloaded with carbon. The equilibrium chemical reactions still result in a net flow into the ocean.

Cheers -- sylas

Thank you for this. I understand that the values presented are averages only. However, shouldn't we be able to ignore human factors and find an actual equilibrium? Looking at the numbers presented, it would appear as if the soil and plant reservoirs are actually gaining carbon while the earth's crust is losing carbon.

[Teallaura]

Teallaura, my #424 above was the attempt to give some of that more.

In brief: when we "add" carbon to the system, what we are doing is taking carbon out of geological reservoirs, and putting it into atmospheric reservoirs.

From atmospheric reservoirs it rapidly circulates through vegetation, soils and the ocean as well; but it takes a long long time to draw back down into geological reservoirs. Eventually, though, that is what will happen, over many thousands of years.

Cheers -- sylas

Ooops! Sorry, I went through the thread kinda fast.

Talk to y'all later - after I catch up! Thanks!

[sylas]

Thank you for this. I understand that the values presented are averages only. However, shouldn't we be able to ignore human factors and find an actual equilibrium? Looking at the numbers presented, it would appear as if the soil and plant reservoirs are actually gaining carbon while the earth's crust is losing carbon.

The simple net numbers provided conceal much underlying complexity. Not only are they averages, they are also best estimates and continually being revised as the cycle continues to be studied.

The whole system is highly dynamic, and is often out of equilibrium in one way or another. The geological cycle, for example, has its own "meta cycles"; periods where mountain building alternates with epochs of erosion. On very long scales, there's the "super-continent" cycle; in which all earth's tectonic plates combine to make one or two huge continents, and then break up again into a larger number of smaller continents. There's the related "Wilson cycle", associated with opening and closing of ocean basins on scales of many millions of years. Depending on where were are in these cycles there may be imbalances one way or the other.... and it is also really hard to measure accurately the very slow processes involved in geological carbon.

The rates are not uniform; you can get periods of extreme vulcanism, leading to flood basalts, and which probably increase geological carbon release by several orders of magnitude.

All the processes occur at different rates over the globe; with net release in one area, and more draw down in another. So the average values obscure a lot of geographic detail.

Same for the faster parts of the cycle. Studies of the carbon cycle identify regions of the ocean which mainly release carbon, and others which absorb it, and all varying with the seasons. The whole things works as a "pump", and is described as such in the literature.

There are major shifts in the expected equilibrium between air and water as Earth moves in and out of the ice ages, and this leave a dramatic signal visible in CO2 records from ice cores tracking conditions over the last million years -- which have seen a number of ice ages (or glacials) come and go. The model for explaining this is changes brought about by small variations in Earth's orbit (Milankovitch cycles) leading to small temperatures changes that get amplified by the consequence release of dissolved CO2; this is a key to understanding ice ages since the solar changes associated with the Milankovitch cycles are so small. And amplifying effect is required to give the changes in temperature that occur.

In recent times, of course, the human effect stands out with a whole range of impacts on the numbers you see; and these changes are much more rapid than what is normally the case, even when you look at the changes in and out of the ice ages. The summary diagrams varying from decade to decade, and another common annotation in such diagrams is to provide a number change that reflects these impacts; the easiest one to measure is the size of the atmospheric reservoir, up by some 35% or so from a hundred years ago.

So in answer to your questions... there are some really basic discoveries that are well established, and no end of subtlety as we try to obtain a more and more detailed and complete picture. You can actually see the whole planet "breathing", in a sense, when you look at atmospheric carbon. In summer carbon is drawn in, and in winter it comes back out again; mainly by seasonable variation in plant respiration.

By and large, soil and vegetation is most likely absorbing additional carbon; that is, the reservoirs are growing. This is all part and parcel of there being a lot more carbon now in the fast biological cycles, added from fossil fuel reserves.

As for the crust emitting carbon: I'm a bit skeptical. This is, I presume, based on the volcanic emission (0.1) being more than the sedimentation flux (0.01). These numbers are uncertain, and added mainly (I think) to show the contrast between geological processes and the fast cycles of the biosphere.

Because the geological fluxes are so much slower than the other processes of the carbon cycle, you can't measure them directly as a simple measurement of changing amounts of carbon. The numbers are actually based on geological models of the processes involved; the models are always being tested and refined in all kinds of ways other than simply measuring fluxes directly. But it looks to me that some slow processes might not even be properly represented here. Should there be a "subduction" flux, where ocean beds are slowly carried down into the mantles as part of continental drift? I'm not sure; but I would expect that to be the major "balance" to volcanic emission, rather than sedimentation.

None of this complexity provides any credible way to get around the observation that it is the human industrial emissions that are driving an exceptionally large and rapid change in atmospheric carbon; with a whole pile of knockon consequences as the cycle is carried so far from its normal balance. That's pretty obvious just by the simple numbers for the amount of carbon which is burned; and it is confirmed also by the "Suess" effect -- a major tool for studying the carbon cycle by tracking changes in isotopic ratios of carbon in the difference reservoirs. Not only is there more carbon in the oceans and the atmosphere; the ratios of C12 to C13 are changing due to the influx of C13 depleted carbon from fossil fuel reserves. Previously the C13/C12 ration was kept in balance by continual mixing. Now we are mixing in a completely new source carbon, and we can see this as ratios change in all the different reservoirs.

Cheers -- sylas

[Carrikature]

So in answer to your questions... there are some really basic discoveries that are well established, and no end of subtlety as we try to obtain a more and more detailed and complete picture. You can actually see the whole planet "breathing", in a sense, when you look at atmospheric carbon. In summer carbon is drawn in, and in winter it comes back out again; mainly by seasonable variation in plant respiration.

By and large, soil and vegetation is most likely absorbing additional carbon; that is, the reservoirs are growing. This is all part and parcel of there being a lot more carbon now in the fast biological cycles, added from fossil fuel reserves.

As for the crust emitting carbon: I'm a bit skeptical. This is, I presume, based on the volcanic emission (0.1) being more than the sedimentation flux (0.01). These numbers are uncertain, and added mainly (I think) to show the contrast between geological processes and the fast cycles of the biosphere.

Because the geological fluxes are so much slower than the other processes of the carbon cycle, you can't measure them directly as a simple measurement of changing amounts of carbon. The numbers are actually based on geological models of the processes involved; the models are always being tested and refined in all kinds of ways other than simply measuring fluxes directly. But it looks to me that some slow processes might not even be properly represented here. Should there be a "subduction" flux, where ocean beds are slowly carried down into the mantles as part of continental drift? I'm not sure; but I would expect that to be the major "balance" to volcanic emission, rather than sedimentation.

I knew the numbers as averages wouldn't reflect specific cycles. It didn't occur to me to ask what range of time the averages are intended to reflect. I didn't know that about the planet "breathing", but it makes plenty of sense. I wonder if I could use that picture in a story...

You're correct that I was comparing the (0.1) volcanic emission to the (0.01) sedimentation flux. I think you're right that there are some slow processes not properly represented. I have too little knowledge to even attempt a guess and what those things would be.

Thanks again for the wonderfully informative posts.

[Teallaura]

Y'all are making 'catching up' really difficult!

[Carrikature]

Y'all are making 'catching up' really difficult!

Lern2reedfastr.