Latest News (hidethedecline)

Lets go back to the centre of the climate debate: Where is the data that actually tells scientists that CO₂ has a strong and important warming effect in the atmosphere? If CO₂ has this strong warming effect, would not nature reflect this in data?

In January 2009 I discussed the apparently missing CO₂ warming signal in data at Watts Up With That in: "CO2, Temperature and Ice Ages"

I added most of the 4 large interglacial temperature peaks into one peak for a closer look.
The pro-CO₂ argument goes, that  1) CO₂-levels at only 210-240 ppm "must" be the reason that temperatures boosts and thus could change 6-7-8 Kelvin or more on Earth.

However, in ice core graphs it’s clear that 2) CO₂ concentrations far higher, 250-280 ppm, occurs while the temperature declines during 15-20 thousand years after the interglacial temperature peaks and thus temperatures returns almost to start level.

Notice:

!! When the strong heating occurs, the CO2 levels are mostly rather low 210-250 ppm !!

!! When the cooling occurs, the CO2 levels are mostly rather high 250-280 ppm !!

So far the findings above cannot prove that CO₂ has no warming effect at all, but we should not forget, that these data are actually supposed to be the data that shows the strong warming effect of CO₂ - the very foundation of the global warming idea. But these data fail to do so.
Some peoble then appears to accept that the best "proof" of the CO₂ effect is data that does not directly disproof a minor CO₂ effect...  !

(Imagine the same "religion-like" criteria for accepting a hyposthesis was also valid for the Solar theory...)

Furthermore, if some scientists thinks that CO₂ just need to have a minor effect, it is as though they forget the basis of the CO₂ theory that actually demands the CO₂ effect to be dominating and strong:

The CO₂ increase is supposed to increase Earth temperatures to a far higher level than seen on Earth in a million years or more in just few centuries. So obviously we are entitled to see actual data showing a significant CO₂ effect dominating the natural mechanisms of temperature regulation on Earth.

I have downloaded the available CO₂/temperature data from NASA (petit et al 1997-99):

I then to plotted data from sample to sample to seek for an actual CO₂ warming signal.

(The Petit data has far less CO₂ measurement data points than temperature points, so I have matched each CO₂ measurement with the temperature data taken nearest possible to the CO₂ sample. This gave in average periods of approximately 1500 years length, the mismatch in sample data is approximately 52 years, but the difference has random direction and thus the CO₂ data points are just 2,4 years later than the temperature points in average.)

Here's how a scatter plot of dT/ dCO₂ appears:

dT and dCO₂ are calculated simply as:

The outcome showed a visible trend: A larger dCO₂ is accompanied by a larger dT.

Bingo?

No of course not, so far I have only showed that temperatures and CO₂ concentrations over the Ice ages go hand in hand to some degree. We already knew that - but in no way does this shed light on the question: Can CO₂ it self actually cause heat? Or are higher CO₂ concentrations mostly a result of temperatures?

So I have to go one step further, I need to find out:
Can a changed CO₂ concentration in fact change the trend of temperatures?
I made a plot ddT vs dCO2, the change of temperature trend pr 1000 years in kelvin as a function of change in CO₂ concentration:

And again I made a scatter plot, and this time when highlighting the effect of CO₂ change on change in temperature trend per millennium I found...

Nothing. The ability of CO₂ to change the temperature trend from one period to the next is extremely hard to pinpoint. I just see white noise.
Is it wrong to expect a visible CO₂ warming signal from these data? If CO₂ was really capable of making global temperature much warmer than seen in a million years in nature - should there not be a visible connection between CO₂ change and change in temperature trend?

I have thus failed to show a CO₂ effect for these intervals in average 1500 years long - So perhaps the CO2 effect is supposed to have an effect only using some other length of periods? or? No doubt, data appears very noisy as CO₂ trends and temperature trends are rather irregular appearing over the years - but still, should a strong CO₂ effect not be visible from this noise?

But the most important point is:

It’s questionable whether it’s possible to disprove a strong CO₂ effect from these data, but these data with the intervals available are important data from Vostok actually used to conclude a strong CO₂ effect supposed to overrule the temperature levels seen in a million years.

So: Are these data sufficient foundation to “prove” a strong CO₂ warming effect?

Then I have been told that the data that "really" shows a strong warming effect of CO₂ is in stead to be found in PETM data. But for the PETM data we still just see that CO₂ only rose AFTER the temperature rise 55 mio years ago. So nothing new there:
http://hidethedecline.eu/pages/posts/petm-ndash-finally-an-example-of-co2-causing-heat-179.php

Where is the data that actually shows a strong and important warming effect of CO2?

Last changed: 25th August, 2010 at 18:52:36

Comments