A paper that is nearly 60 years old shows us just how intrinsically important CO2 is to life.
An acre of corn is a living machine drawing CO2 from the air around it. In windless conditions, CO2 concentrations over a cornfield build up each night as CO2 diffuses from higher air and the organic matter and bacteria create CO2 from the soil. A paper by Chapman et al from 1954[1], shows that as soon as the sun comes up, to power-up those dormant photosynthetic cells, the plants rapidly draw down as much CO2 as possible, and when the CO2 levels fall too low, plant growth surely slows.
On a windless day CO2 values rose to 410ppm overnight and fell to 210ppm during the morning.
This graph shows CO2 content of the air over a cornfield on a still day (no wind). Sunrise occurs at 5am and CO2 levels plummet til 8am, reaching their lowest by 1pm, which is nearly half the CO2 concentration of the peak reached overnight. The corn is affecting CO2 levels in air even as high as 150m or 500ft above. These level out by around 8am and only start to increase again, a couple of hours after sunset.
No wonder some farmers use greenhouses and pump in CO2 to boost their yields. The afternoon sun goes a-wasted as plants growth slows because CO2 levels are not high enough.
The message to gardeners is that this is why plants that get morning sun have an advantage.
Fig. 1. Variations in the C02 content of air in a corn field and 152 m above it on a still day. A C02 deficit of more than 100 lbs an acre was developed within 3 hrs after sunrise, to remain nearly constant until late afternoon.
Chapman point out that there is 40,000 lbs of CO2 normally present in the air over each acre.
This graph shows that on a windier day the effect is muted because CO2 is being brought in by the wind from areas around the field. CO2 falls ’til about 12 noon before leveling off as plant growth slows. Again, even air 150m above the field shows the effects of the plants underneath.
Fig. 2. Variations in the C02 content in a corn field and 152 m above it on a day with winds of 3 to 8 mph. Changes were less abrupt than those shown in figure 1, but very considerable deficits were still present.
…
Figure 3B below shows what happens after a frost on a mature corn crop. Growth is noticeably slowed and delayed.
Fig. 3. A. CO2 variation on a windy morning — similar to figure 2. B. CO2 variation after frost. Note higher concentrations and erratic changes in the absence of important amounts of photosynthesis.
Discussion and Summary
The daytime decrease in the C02 content of the air among plants carrying on active photosynthesis has been confirmed and shown to extend, with some lag, to a height of 152 m or 500 ft. A typical fluctuation in the C02 content at 152 m was 0.03 % at night, decreasing to 0.027 % during the day. With winds of 5 mph or more the C02 content of the air in a corn field sampled at a height of 1 m, was nearly the same as that at the 152 m level, but on still days and nights a maximum variation of 0.02 % has been observed; from 0.041 % at night to 0.021 % during active photosynthesis. Since the equilibrium C02 level at which net photosynthesis becomes zero is in the neighborhood of 0.01 % (21) such marked drops in the 02 content of the air may be expected to limit photosynthesis and crop yields. The estimated annual per acre production of C02 in Iowa is of the same order as its use in photosynthesis, with decay of organic matter in the soil, or respiration of soil organisms, the dominant factor in C02 production. Although daily production may be considerably more or less than use, the 40,000 lb reserve of the air, plus exchange with other regions by air currents, serves to bring the C02 supply in the air a few meters above the soil to near “normal” each night. A deficit of 10% in C02 at 150 m during rapid photosynthesis may represent the gradient across which excess use by plants can be replaced from higher levels of the atmosphere. The rapid fluctuations in the C02 content of field air indicate that attempts to measure variations in different growing seasons in the average C02 content of the air (14) are subject to large errors and the results difficult to interpret. Similar problems beset attempts to measure long-time changes in average C02 concentration (9).
REFERENCES
[1^]Chapman H. W .,Gleason L. S., Loomis W. E. (1954): The carbon dioxide content of field air. Plant Physiology 29,6, pp 500-503 [PDF freely available]
to find out more about real CO2 data at the ground level it is worth visiting Beck’s website called realCO2 at http://www.biomind.de/realCO2/
Dr Darko Butina (UK)
140
Now just imagine the absolute benefit if there was a generally higher concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. That early afternoon level might not drop below 300ppm. The extra growth would be amazing. We are already seeing signs of this with the increase biosphere growth around the world.
oh. and…
PLANT LUV CO2
303
The old farmers in North Queensland used to burn off leaves, rubbish and branches under the Bowen Mango trees in the afternoon after lunch if there was no wind.
I was told it stopped the insects & fungal attacks, but just wondering if the growth was better over a season with this method. Even the local school had mango trees, and the gardeners used to do the same. Some of of those trees were huge, and great to climb, but always remember how healthy they were.
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Not possible to display my CO2 datalogs (SenseAir K-30)up here in NQ as I have yet to re-install the software on my new workstation, but the daylight and darkness levels are fairly steady, eg 400 ppm daylight hours, 425 – 450 ppm sundown to sunrise. No afternoon drop-off. Airflow is about 60%+ unmitigated off the Coral Sea. Occasional spikes that are easy to explain, eg lawnmower passing underneath the sensor, large diesel engine idling 10m away up-wind, burn-offs on Magnetic Island. Spikes that are less easy to explain sometimes occur late summer afternoons. Could be “carbon pipe” effect eg out-gassing. There’s no coincidence with the RAAF bombing Rattlesnake Island, and there’s no power stations out there.
The airflow is mostly over Mangroves, so photosynthesis, but also prolific decay of tidal debris, humming and popping with life. Not much in common with a temperate climate cornfield 🙂
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Hi Martin,
That’s interesting regarding the SenseAir K-30 and the constant CO2 concentration throughout the day. Have you done any measurements on sugar cane fields at Ingham, Innisfail or Ayr/Home Hill areas? It would be interesting to see a comparison from NQ on a different crop as compared to the Iowa study. (I can’t find any papers on this).
The study above mentioned this in the intro:
“Verduin and Loomis (24) noted that the low daytime CO2 at ground level was not increased appreciably by winds of moderate velocity, thus raising the question of stratification and limited mixing of surface air with higher levels.”
But in the study above, it’s saying that CO2 is being pulled down from the air some 150 meters?
Lots of questions and more research needed.
11
Hi Dave,
“Have you done any measurements on sugar cane fields at Ingham, Innisfail or Ayr/Home Hill areas?”
That would be interesting – C4 rather than a C3 plant. I’m in the bit between the above locations where it’s not worth growing the stuff.
I’m a bit dubious about the “pulled down 150 metres” bit. Could it be thermals creating the loop? CO2 has a slightly higher “weight” than other components of air. I have used an older CO2 meter to monitor confined workspaces such as small bathrooms where one or two people are using gas torches to make capillary joints in copper pipe. They work, chat, might even have pulled out the odd smoke if no one was looking. I usually set the meter to squawk at 2000 ppm. [“What the #%$@ is that…”] The higher the device was placed above the floor, the longer it took to go off. Similarly, the “burn-off” spikes above. Significant when I have been 3km down-wind of a mainland bushfire, but a similar level obtained from a similar scale event on Magnetic Island which is 15km away, over Halifax Bay. The stuff might mix, but it doesn’t mix that quickly.
“Lots of questions and more research needed.”
I concur. My little wired usb rig probably cost me around $A200. With bulk ordering from the manufacturer, the cost per unit for wireless dataloggers is a tiny fraction of that. It is now mandatory in Australia for almost every cool-room store or similar facility to have CO2 monitoring. We no longer have to base everything on satellites and Mauna Loa.
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Interesting; AGW is based on CO2 being well-mixed with only slight variations in concentration throughout the atmosphere. This research seems to contradict that assumption and supports Beck’s work.
What interests me is the comparison between established, mature forests and quick-growing crops; which takes more CO2 from the atmosphere; the point being that cropping may use more CO2 than ‘natural’ cover; which would send the greenies shrieking.
The role of plants is fundamental as Makarieva’s work suggests.
That plants are both crucial and differ greatly in their effect on atmospheric conditions should be obvious looking at a comparison of the different emissivity of different types of vegetation.
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Cohenite,
I’m getting a bit lost with all the science, but it seems definitely that different vegetation forms can affect local or regional weather. How the diffusion of CO2 works, I’m not sure, but those emissivity charts highlight the variations.
I was in Mount Isa in the 1960’s when they planted many trees, shrubs etc and they had just finished Lake Moondarra (I think 1959), and I’ve been back since and the place gets more rainfall, and is generally cooler. The humidity is higher also, and the old water evaporation A/C units seem to have disappeared.
Maybe direct action should include water security, to enable us to change the local or regional weather patterns. The temperature reduction in any heavily planted area is very obvious, and must affect the atmospheric conditions above it. eg large heavily wooded areas, rain forest and large crop fields.
So much stuff to learn and enjoy.
40
Dear fellow skeptics,
Please be a little conseqent in your skepticism:
Everybody here agrees that you shouldn’t measure temperature on a hot asphalt parking lot or near a barbeque. That doesn’t represent the real local/regional temperature. There are better places to measure temperature.
But several here say that measuring CO2 near growing vegetation in the past (Beck’s compilation) represents the global CO2 levels of that time. Have a look at what a modern station shows on one of Beck’s top locations on a few summer days, compared to Mauna Loa, Barrow (AK, USA) and the South Pole, real “baseline” stations (all raw data, including outliers):
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/giessen_background.jpg
Thus many of the historical CO2 measurements are worthless for estimates of the “background” CO2 level of that time, except if taken over the oceans.
Current “baseline” stations, mostly far away from vegetation, mid oceans, mountain tops, deserts, together with regular airflighs all show similar CO2 levels for 95% of the atmosphere. Thus forget the 5% over the first 1000 meter over land where a lot of sources and sinks are at work…
22
Does this put new light on Abbott’s (much derided) “Direct Action” scheme?
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I have no issues with planting trees… so long as he boosts the supply of CO2 for them. 🙂
We shouldn’t rely on China, India, Germany etc to provide all our plant food.
230
We shouldn’t be beholding to China …
Nice one 🙂
00
The fun part is that we are providing China (and others) with the base material.
They are releasing the CO2..
I’d prefer if we released more down here, but politics wants to downgrade the Australian industrial scene.
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AndyG55, I have issues with planting trees as tree growth is natural. It is the woody exotic species that are interrupting the natural cycle that concerns me.
One of the biggest arrows in my quiver is natural flora remediation. This year alone, I have road tripped from Brisbane to Perth and back, done the Qld outback and Tennant Creek and have reported my observations to the power that is now be.
It is looking fantastic out there, mostly. It is my experience that the warmists that have stated that our natural environment is sick have never ventured past their city limits! Even if they did they could not recognise how indeed healthy it is.
A few years ago I related here my battle here with Combet’s office in relation that Australians are the biggest polluters by capita. Not long after this the Labor government dropped the line.
The truth is that 30% of our so called emissions are attributed to natural bushfires. Due to the nature of our natural species, bushfires are required for germination of seed and also provides the nutrients for such to survive and thrive.
The reality is the Australian mainland and surrounding waters are a carbon sink and we are letting our environment down by suppressing our CO2 output.
The warmists are committing environmental treason by restricting CO2 being released but to be half nice…they do not know what damage they are doing in the name of their rather warped religion.
60
That’s for sure. Revegetation using local native species is always the go.
And I also agree, we should NOT be curtailing our CO2 output.
Its shear stupidity, not only from an economic perspective, but from an environmental point of view as well.
I do not understand why the Greens, of all people want to starve the plant world.
Must because they are purely an ignorant, totalitarian, anti-progress, regressive, backward political party, and actually want nothing at all to do with the environment or preserving nature.
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As I advised my MLA, Direction Action also seems daft in places, but doesn’t actually specify how the “5% reduction” will be obtained. Could be entirely based on refitting power stations with USC.
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I have emailed the Liberals on that, several times.
The 5% reduction could be achieved by upgrading coal powered stations.
And think of the other benefits.. reliable, consistent electricity, and if the RET is dumped, a possible reduction in electricity cost.
The economy would luv it !!
80
I know of no species that doesn’t thrive when its food supply is increased.
p.s. next time you’re out and about, look at the vegetation (including trees) along road sides. They’re almost all invariably in good health.
When I was a kid, I used to wonder at the lush greenness of trees in the heart of the city of Melbourne. One would have thought all that “pollution” from heavy traffic would have taken a toll on those trees.
251
The foliage along roadsides also doesn’t have to battle as much with other plants for the small amount of CO2 that is the atmosphere. Plus the added CO2 from cars.. of course its doing well. 🙂
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The heat doesn’t hurt either; unless it’s from the burning batteries of a Prius. 😉
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Good point Bernd,
Had a mate who lost control of his electric R/C model aircraft.
As we all watched it went vertical into the field.
The Li-Po kept going and ruptured on the way through to embed itself in the wet ground.
The white plume of smoke that spewed up was spectacular.
Have never seen a Prius do that.
KK
30
I was half-joking about the Prius. Most of them still have NiMH packs though the newer ones have the Li-Ion available … for only another $10,000. But money is no object for people who want to be seen to be doing the rightthing.
While I was taking part in the World Solar Challenge a decade ago, I read up on the precautions necessary for lithium-based batteries. Basically, the only truly roadworthy type at the time (and ISTM still now) are LiFePO which exhibit inherent stability and usability over a reasonable temperature range.
If ANY lithium-based battery catches fire for some reason, one must move up-wind of the fire and otherwise avoid breathing the fumes. Li-Ion cells are self-oxidising; i.e. they may as well be solid-fuel rockets.
The fire is too hazardous to try to extinguish in the open. You simply let it burn your car to the ground. Users should have a Class D fire extinguisher and breathing apparatus available if they wish to protect battery attached equipment from total destruction. As a general rule for those not experienced and trained in fighting such fires; one should not attempt to fight the fire except to save lives.
40
Speaking of roadside foliage, the grass at the Merewether Heights site is over a metre tall and looking threatening.
What is worse however is the escape road for the Glenrock scout camp caretaker.
Wanting to check the fire , I had a drive down there and the roadside is seriously in need of de-cluttering for at least 3 metres either side to make it safe.
Never fear; NPWS has put signs on the tracks everywhere asking people to help conserve the environment by not using those tracks.
I’m just waiting for some clown to say the fire still burning on the southern Gun Club ridge was caused by Global Warming or its little brother Climate Change.
KK
40
Baa Humbug says…
I couldn’t agree more – especially we have seen over the last 7 years or so, an explosion in Parasitticus Zombificus that has thrived in an environment of increased taxation and government debt.
40
The comment that we need to be reminded of how “intrinsically important CO2 is to life” is obviously intended to be about plants.
But it is also vital to Humans in that the CO2 in the bloodstream is a neuro-regulator and controls our breathing impulse.
Humans can tolerate a very large range of CO2 levels in normal situations with for example up to 8,000 ppm being experienced in
submarines at times as compared to current average of about 380 ppm in the air around us.
The breathing cycle adopted during singing results in enhanced levels of CO2 in the bloodstream and a feeling of well being.
At the end of life there is a pattern of breathing known as Cheyne-Stokes breathing and it is the reverse of that used in singing.
The result is to remove CO2 from the bloodstream and when that happens there is no CO2 left to provide the NEXT breath stimulus.
It is paradoxical that many call CO2 ; “that poisonous pollutant” when it is the basic stimulant for our being.
KK
Singing: sharp intake – long slow expiration. Accumulates CO2.
Cheyne – Stokes: Long slow inhalation – short sharp exhalation: accumulates Oxygen.
330
Thank you KK. That is extremely informative. I hadn’t heard of Cheyne-Stokes before, but I do remember so well being at the bedside of a loved one in their last hours and their breathing pattern is etched in my memory.
50
Thanks Grant,
I had the same experience.
She was aware, then decided it was time and pushed away to let go and enter that breathing pattern.
A remarkable end.
I had done neuropsychology and psycho-biology at Uni and was vaguely aware of the CO2 as neural regulator.
When I started to look into it afterwards the contrast in the patterns between singing and Cheyne Stokes was quite strong.
It became evident that singing achieved the same purpose as the old remedy for panic of breathing into a paper bag.
On a lighter note, ducks and other birds get off to sleep by tucking their heads under a wing.
Perhaps the extra CO2 helps them sleep?
KK
90
This seems mischievous as you seem to be implying that atmospheric CO2 levels are vital for breathing response in human.
Why do you think it would be good to have higher concentrations of CO2 in the lungs when a concentration differential between the air and blood is important for removing the CO2 from the blood. You also didn’t mention that the CO2 gets into the blood as result of respiration (O2 plus carbon from food gives energy plus CO2). CO2 needs to be removed from the blood to help push the reaction in the desired direction, hence the reason it is part of its own regulation.
14
So Gee says
“This seems mischievous as you seem to be implying that atmospheric CO2 levels are vital for breathing response in human”.
This mechanism has little to do with atmospheric CO2 levels as All of the activity is within the lungs, brain and bloodstream.
Intake levels of CO2 are about 390 ppm although they are rising so fast that could be 395 now.
Expiration levels, from memory, are about 40,000 ppm.
If you re-read what I wrote I did not say what levels of CO2 were required, all I was saying was that if CO2 levels in the bloodstream get too low, the next breath, and that is always the important one, will not be triggered.
It is intuitively obvious that CO2 levels in the body should not get too high because it means that O2 is too low and without O2 we do not function.
gee you have been busy: ” You also didn’t mention that the CO2 gets into the blood as result of respiration”.
If inspiration is about 400 ppm and expiration is about 40,000 ppm it means that the flow of CO2 at the blood/lung interface is pretty much all one one way.
Not much is going to go against a blood concentration that produces 40,000 ppm just prior to expiration.
KK
40
There was a post by Willis Eschenbach a couple of days ago on WUWT about breathing while exercising. Willis reckons he does much better when he breathes in quickly and exhales more slowly. Any human physiologists care to comment ?
40
Aren’t all physiologists human? Just askin’
50
Not to be confused with certain Psychology academics.
50
Percy Cerruty, who coached Herb Elliott had a similar idea but I cant remember which pattern he advocated.
I would suspect that the best for running would have been long slow inhalation and rapid expulsion but ??
KK
10
Hi Mike I read that post on WUWT and it was definately exhale longer than inhale.
I tried it on my treadmill using my normal run pattern and it made a huge difference, I didnt blow a candle out after running for 30 minutes which was the opposite to what normally happens so I was very impressed with the result.
A question KK because I am now extremely interested in this after my own results wouldnt exhaling more than you inhale ensure you have expelled more CO2 allowing more fresh O2 into the lungs on the next inhale?
50
Interesting question Scott.
The most apparent answer, linked to my outlines above of patterns in singing and Cheyne – Stokes, is that the Cheyne Stokes would be best for running.
Physiology being what it is however what might at first seem intuitively obvious is not always the right answer.
The main thing I see in the breathing pattern thing is residence time in the lungs coupled with pressure within the lungs during each phase.
I am not an exercise physiologist, just a metallurgist with some other qualifications in Psycho-biology.
Slow prolonged intake would appear to allow a constant supply of Oxygen to keep entering the lungs but restricted transfer of CO2 out of the blood.
The rapid expulsion may not give waste products in the blood sufficient time to accumulate in the lung ready for expulsion.
Don’t want to go on too long but I suspect that from what you say, the long slow out-breath must maximise CO2 removal from the bloodstream.
These internal reactions are very complex and often linked in ways that are hard to quantify. Interesting.
KK
20
Thanks to both KK and Mike for your replies.
KK will be interested to hear what you experience.
The other side effect I found was a reduction in lactic acid build up (or the effects of lactic acid build up).
30
I tried it on my last two vigorous morning walks and it seems to work for me. I think what happens is that by taking longer to exhale you maintain a higher partial pressure of CO2 in the lungs resulting in higher CO2 levels in the blood which I have read relaxes the blood vessels which reduces blood pressure. The higher CO2 also causes you to breathe in better on the next breath which improves oxygenation which may also be due to the more relaxed blood vessels. Whatever, it seems to work. I’m not a physiologist but have an interest in this as I once got hyperventilated while flying solo which was a frightening experience. I’m also aware of a number of accidents in gliders where the pilots simply flew into the ground at high speed sometimes after the aircraft doing strange manoeuvers. I’ve wondered if stress/apprehension/fright could cause the pilot to breathe wrongly, get hyperventilated and either pass out or find that he or she could not move his or her hands on the controls. The authorities aren’t interested and simply write these accidents off to other causes without actually any proof.
30
Interesting. Must try it out. Do a before and after test run on different days.
KK
00
Mike,
Another pasts experience just came back.
I saw a couple of young fellows at a nearby table blowing on the table surface and thought that kinda weird.
After a few moments one of them collapsed and hit his head on the floor as hes went down.
Seems they were doing it to get a cheap high!
It cost him a snapped front tooth.
Obviously he had over-oxygenated his blood and lost consciousness; maybe there is a parallel with the “anxious” glider pilots.
KK
00
I remember first reading from Freeman Dyson how a field of corn would suck the vital-to-life CO2 out of the atmosphere in the morning and half-starve the rest of the day.
Thanks for re-visiting this thought, Jo, and we should all promote the fact that CO2 is at low levels, and is NOT a pollutant.
More CO2 = more biomass = more food…..why don’t your old Green friends know this, Joanne?
170
Yes, Dyson was right on the mark years ago, saying we needed to measure the vertical distribution of CO2 over different surfaces and record its downward migration. I don’t see many scientists doing this, -probably cos it’s a bit tricky in practice.
90
It would also conflict with the models that assume a homogenised atmosphere.
40
” and we should all promote the fact that CO2 is at low levels”
Hallelujah !!!!!
Towards 700ppm !
40
Beef farmers I know reckon it is better to move their stock in the early afternoon, than first thing in the morning, because it “stimulates” grass growth. Perhaps this is at least part of the reason?
20
“More food…”
That’s why I have bumper stickers by my cars dual exhausts with and arrow to each and a caption that says “It’s Plant Food”.
30
Perhaps wind turbines might find a use after all. They have been shown to mix air from higher altitude with that at ground level, helping to prevent frost damage. If they also drag down CO₂ to ground level where it can be locked up in plant growth then what’s not to like. Apart from the eyesore and the infra sound and the roads and the dead birds and bats, what have the turbines done for us?
100
CO2 levels experienced in submarines can reach 30,000 ppm.BT,DT. Maybe thats why I’m so sweet?
40
Forget about the direct benefit to plants for a while, that is a good thing but bear with me.
If the plants do that much business that quickly that also explains the behaviour of thermals cranking up and then the clouds forming later in the day as the consequence of all that CO2 absorbtion must be the release of water vapour and O2. To release each 1 kG of H2O vapour requires the absorption of some 2250 kilojoules of energy to supply the required latent heat of vapourisation (LHV). This in turn is sufficient heat withdrawal to cool an adjacent 2250 kG of air by 1˚C or 22,500 kG by 0.1˚C. This energy rich water vapour ascends to the upper atmosphere on the thermals where over the day it cools, condenses and gives up that LHV which ultimately largely escapes into space.
That is one powerful, efficient and easily understood negative feedback to the GH effect of increased CO2. Trenberth puts the total evaporo-transpiraion budget at about 78 Watts/m^2 so only a marginal increase in same would wipe out the direct CO2 GH effect. Prima facie this explains a simple explanation for the “missing heat” and for min it beats the hell out of the deep oceans. I wonder how long before it is quantified? Cui Bono if it was?
120
Do you have more scientific studies about this? Like how much energy is taken from the atmosphere if you get more plants and trees on Earth? I know it takes energy to form carbonhydroxides CO2 + H2O -> glucose.
30
Short answer is no, not my field. As an engineer I am aware of LHV so that aspect and its Q&D quantification occurred to me. I find it rather extraordinary that this whole aspect of the climate mechanisms is apparently off the radar of climate science! I mean the whole thing about CO2 is about plants. What is toxic to us in high concentrations is food to them. I have read one report saying that the deserts are starting to green up apparently due to the extra CO2. That is clear evidence of more metabolic activity which must have an associated energy flow. The emperors of climate change are starting to look more and more naked and … Oh my god…. they’re almost dickless! ( Sorry Jo and other girls )
31
This is one of the reasons I have no faith in the climate models. They basically fail to take account of biology. I think I mentioned this here years ago. The atmosphere has 20% oxygen because we have living things on the planet. The blue-green algae tried to murder all the anaerobes which now have to hide where the poisonous oxygen can’t kill them.
30
Climate models fail because they don’t ‘model’ at all they just fabricate bits that fit the modellers desired outcomes. Modelling is usually based on mathematical constructs that are of the same or simplified form as a suspected mechanism. What sort of ding bat thinks a straight line is even a simplified form of the actual climate mechanisms? If you need 15 or 30 years for a liner model to give a meaningful result, you don’t wait for 15 to 30 years , you look at a higher order mathematical construct! What utter drongoes!
Hansen admitted the models were off the mark years ago and blamed it on aerosols. Now they blame the ‘deep oceans’. Next time they will blame something else and then something else because the moddelers’ and their spruikers’ moral superiority makes them above reality checks.
10
Yes, I read an article by NASA stating that the Earth is turning greener.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalGarden/
On average a 6% growth of vegetation. That would suck a lot of CO2 in plants and also takes energy from our atmosphere to produce photosynthesis. Hail CO2!
Newest predictions by the IPCC are about 1°C warmer in 2100 plus a greener Earth. When do they wake up in Greenpeace and the like?
30
Reinder,
Zombies don’t wake up. They are (brain) dead.
30
Ursus, look for recent work by Makarieva et al on evapotranspiration driven winds. Cohenite gave a link at 3.1.2 above, see also Judith Curry’s website.
00
Wait a minute, 60 years ago the co2 climbed to 410ppm overnight? It’s not supposed to be that high even today (average global is presumed to be 400ppm0 AFTER all the years of human carbon spewing.
Is something wrong with what the science thinks earlier co2 levels actually were?
130
Yeah, funny about that.
But who are you going to believe?
The IPCC with an obvious political agenda, who claim atmospheric CO2 was 280ppm forever and ever before Evil ManBearPig started burning coal, or the faithfully recorded observations of a real scientist with no axe to grid whatsoever either way regarding atmospheric CO2 levels?
.
BTW, I replied to your comment on the unthreaded thread.
140
Mark, the measurement of atmospheric CO2 is one of these averaging things from a few scattered points around the globe. Highly accurate, of course 😉
Past CO2 values are derived from all sort of
poxyproxies. stomata, CO2 bubbles in ice etc etcCO2 varies considerably from point to point and in time, as the simple study in this thread has shown.
Is the IPCC correct in saying that its been below 300 for .. like.. foreffa..
Who knows, but going on their track record.. probably not.
80
And I do take MV’s point, in that those old scientists were usually very fastidious in there approach, and while they may not have had the precision we can sometimes have nowadays, you can bet they were still pretty accurate.
70
Mark,
There is nothing wrong with the old data since they were measured on land where photosynthesis determines CO2 levels. MLO data comes from CO2 detector 4000 meters up and in the middle of the Pacific where CO2 concentration is driven by its solubility in water which is driven by temperature. For example, if you measure CO2 levels in the garden you will have CO2 levels in the winter over 500 ppm during day – plants dead and photosynthesis not working and therefore CO2 build up. It is simple chemistry. Dr Darko Butina
110
Iirc, the CO2 levels under an adiabatic inversion can get up to quite high levels, 2000 or so… until the plants start using it up after dawn.
20
Thank you Dr. Butina. I really didn’t think the 60 year old data was necessarily wrong. 60 years ago scientists were more, er, scientific. I’d tend to doubt that in 1880 the number is known with certainty to be 280ppm.
So why is it we have winter then?
20
Read the graph (Fig 1) again, Mark. It shows the dashed horizontal “Normal” line, which, at ~0.59 mg of CO2 is some way below the overnight accumulated 0.84 mg of CO2 per litre of air.
I thought the same as you for a minute.
Consider also, if the graph was ‘modernised’, what the scale would read.
Oops. Just spotted Dr Marko’s comment, which, thankfully, doesn’t negate mine.
10
Well, that’s the thing about averages. It’s easy to believe it’s uniform.
I understand that the CO2 drops off as you near the arctic siimply because the colder salt water absorbs the CO2 out of the atmosphere.
Therefor for the average to be 400 while the arctic is more likely 100, the rest of the world has to be higher in order to reach said average.
Then you take into account forests, deserts and swamps. All would have a very different CO2 profile.
An average world CO2 becomes as meaningless as an average world temperature.
50
Some further info on CO2 and safety from the engineers tool box.
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/co2-comfort-level-d_1024.html
Normal CO2 Levels
The effects of increased CO2 levels on adults at good health can be summarized:
normal outdoor level: 350 – 450 ppm
acceptable levels: < 600 ppm
complaints of stiffness and odors: 600 – 1000 ppm
ASHRAE and OSHA standards: 1000 ppm
general drowsiness: 1000 – 2500 ppm
adverse health effects expected: 2500 – 5000 ppm
maximum allowed concentration within a 8 hour working period: 5000 ppm
Ir has lots of other technical info. Note the “Adverse Health effects line…
30
I think I read somewhere that the USN tries to keep the air in nuclear subs to <8000 ppm so I've some severe doubts about those numbers.
20
Well, given that those figures are “published” in an Engineering fact book, and given that they are probably related to public safety, you can bet that those stated limits, are probably about 25-30% of what the military would consider suitable for an “operational” limit.
There are also acclimatisation and pressurisation factors to be considered. Neither of which would have been taken into account in a general purpose fact book.
20
With engineering and public safety, safety limits would more likely have a factor of safety of 100%.
You’re typical house is +100%. An office building is about 300%, and a bridge is about 600%.
10
I think I have previously seen CO2 content for expired air of 40,000 ppm.
As long as there is a good gap between available air and expired air CO2 levels we can still function for a while.
00
Ernst-Georg Beck’s site is well worth a visit. His CV looks good and he welcomes scrutiny.
My immediate reaction to Jo’s post was to ask how far up the CO2 variations reach and Beck’s site indicates quite strong diurnal variation even at 4500m. I find this interesting given that CO2 is only ~1/2500 of atmosphere. The suggestion of the cornfield scenario and the forest at Beck’s site is that there is concerted down-flow of CO2 on a sunny day.
I strongly agree with ursus @ #8 re acceleration of thermals and latent heat transport. While ever there is water available, any near surface warming sets up more rapid latent heat transport to the top of troposphere where radiant heat loss to space is largely unmitigated so, while there might be extra warming due to elevated CO2 near the surface the negative feed-back is rapid and proportional. The lack of a “hot-spot” in the troposphere temp data looks quite reasonable.
I like these more science-based posts Jo.
120
I would welcome scrutiny too if I were dead. Unfortunately, the great Georg Beck died a few years ago after an on-going battle with the IPCC, who never acknowledged the significance of his work, and his daughter now maintains the site. His 2007 paper was based on over 90,000 direct measurements of CO2 from over 130 locations, which were highly accurate, and free from anthropogenic contamination, as he explains in his paper. And yet, the IPCC still cites Callander, even though his conclusions were the result of obvious bias. The ice-core data seems pretty flimsy too, something that becomes apparent when reading Jaworowski’s papers and seeing the Stomata data.
140
An excellent post Jo on a subject i have posted on other sites.
For those who wish to know a little more on just what CO2 means to plants, particularly global grain production which is the basic underpinning of humanity’s food supplies, then I suggest a good look at the CO2 Science site .
In the “Data” section you will find the data relating CO2 concentrations/ atmospheric levels and a whole range of a number of species of plant’s bio-mass responses to increased levels of CO2.
The levels given are 300 ppm, 600 ppm and 900 ppm.
These CO2 levels in the tables are additional to the normal atmospheric concentrations of CO2 of around 400 ppm.
Wheat one of the world’s two basic food crops, the other being rice, Wheat gives it’s best yields of grain at around 600 to 700 ppm of CO2 as can be seen in the CO2 Science data tables by clicking through the “W” in the data selection section.
It is estimated that around 20% of the increase achieved in grain yields over the last quarter of a century is due to increasing atmospheric CO2.
There are a half dozen open air enhanced CO2 experiments being conducted around the world at the moment which instead of relying entirely on highly artificial laboratory environments to research plant’s CO2 use and responses, the open air systems are being run to ascertain the growth and yield response to increased CO2 of a whole range of mankind’s food crop plants and the numerous varieties that make up those food crops in real time weather and climate.
The products of those crops such as the breads, pasties, flour, starch, oils, noodles, pasta and etc and etc plus of course the immense amounts of carbohydrates and proteins in grain which when fed to animals is turned into protein for us humans to consume as meats of many types are the staples of our existence.
One theory kicking around is that when mankind’s ancestors first learn’t to control fire. [ which in my view determines our uniqueness and defines mankind, we are the ONLY species that quite deliberately controls and uses energy,] the cooking of meat made it many times more digestible than in it’s raw state which in turn enabled those early pre-humans to utilise their new access to the increased protein source in a way that led to the enlarging of the brain which in turn led to increasing intelligence and the rising of the species Homo Sapiens.
Thats us and and here we are.!
Not sure about the intelligence bit when i see some performances or lack of !
But back to those open air CO2 experiments, one of which, the only Southern Hemisphere experiment out of the six similar international open air CO2 enrichment experiments is being conducted on the Research Farm here at Horsham’s [ western Victoria ] Grains Innovation Park Agricultural research facility with it’s couple of hundred staff and researchers..
The experiment is known as the AGFACE experiment ( Australian Grains Free Air CO₂ Enrichment )
Rather than going into a lengthy explanation a bit of googling for the “Agface experiment” will bring up a number of sources plus the official Ag fact sheets on this experiment and the results so far after some 3 or 4 years into the experiment. Surprisingly there are quite considerable diferences in response to increased CO2 between species which is to be expected but also quite large differences in responses to elevated CO2 between varieties of the same crop.
More meat for the Ag research mill to chew on.
Surprisingly the water requirements and usage for the extra yields does not go up very much from the water used to produce the lower yields in a lower CO2 environment.
This is due to the plant’s stomata, the tiny microscopic pores on the underside of the leaves of all plants and on the stems in some species, through which the plant accesses the atmospheric CO2, are smaller and fewer in number in a high CO2 environment as the plant with the higher vapor pressure of the elevated CO2 does not need and doesn’t expend the energy to produce extra stomata.
So the plants also emit a lower amount of water vapour through their fewer and smaller stomata thereby reducing usage of water relative to bio-mass despite the increase in bio-mass which is closely related to grain yield in our human selected and engineered grain crops.
The leaf stomata are also the points where the plant emits water vapour, water that has been used to transport nutrients from the soil into the plants biological and photosynthetic processes which strip the carbon from the CO2 molecule and turn it into the carbon based sugars that provide the plant with it’s energy and emit both the water which also cools the plant and keeps it within the temperature tolerance range of the species plus emits the O2 that is part of the CO2 molecule originally taken in by the plant through those same stomata.
It’s an amazing system with plants taking in CO2, stripping the carbon from the CO2 molecule for their biological processes, emitting the Oxygen molecule back into the atmosphere where sentient life forms, “us” being just one of that amazing range of life forms, takes in the O2 to run it’s own biological processes and emits CO2 ready for the plant and fungal world in all it’s diversity to take up and run the cycle all over again.
Increased CO2 and the usual consequent higher yields have a price in that the protein of the grain is usually lower in high yielding crops due in part to the limitations within the plant to accessing and processing the soil nutrients that are used in producing protein within the plant’s seed / grain. The extra bio-mass / growth just reduces the amount of protein available to be put into each seed / grain.
If global cooling does actually occur over the next few decades and with the Maunder and Dalton minimums as examples, I think this cooling will occur, some of the northern grain production areas will likely get knocked out due to too short a growing seasons for the crops to mature [ Fairbanks [ Alaska ] Sees Shortest Summer Thaw Season On Record! – Not a good omen at all on top of the previous 5 record cold winters in Europe with another cold one forecast to come this winter ] then the world’s farmers are going to need all the help they can get to both maintain and increase yields to feed the world.
The serendipitous increases in atmospheric CO2 will go quite some way to helping increase both grain yields and total grain production in that situation.
The northern most cropping regions in Europe and Canada and Russia have had their seasons lengthened by about a fortnight over the last 3 decades as global temperatures rose following the Great Pacific Climate shift and the change in the PDO and probably in the AMO phases in the late 1970’s.
This has enabled grain to be grown in regions where it was impossible previously due to cold climatic conditions.
Plus of course the efforts at breeding adapted varieties suited to those short northern growing seasons by those small in number, but often / usually ignored and dismissed, the highly dedicated and remarkable bunch of individuals, the plant breeders of the world’s basic food crops who in the end are responsible for seeing that the food grain plants of tomorrow will be capable of adequately feeding up to 9 billion human souls and possibly more over the next few decades
After all, since 2007 over one half of all mankind now live in cities of over a hundred thousand people size and they have to be fed quite apart from the rural dwellers who might be able to supplement their food supplies with their own production..
As an now retired farmer and with some knowledge of plant research gained from a close association with many researchers over some 45 years of my working life, [ I was a trustee for our research institution for 28 years ] give me a warm world with lots of CO2 and we can very likely continue to more than adequately feed all of mankind’s increasing numbers.
Throw me a cooling world and we might just make it or maybe not quite get there.
Take away the extra CO2 in a cooling or cold world and I don’t like the chances of quite a lot of humanity having to go hungry quite often with much worse in store for those who are the poorest on earth.
321
You’d do very well in front of a blackboard ROM. Very nicely done!
Ta!
40
I second that, excellent post. My brain increased in size!
30
…thought of as desirable by Green Activists. We are all well acquainted with the Gaia philosophy, which decrees humanity is a scourge on the planet. Downward pressure on population is viewed favourably in these terms.
10
When they picked on carbon as being the root of all evil, they were mounting an attack on the elemental basis of all life on Earth. If you’ve come to believe as I do that environmentalism has become anti-life, it was somehow inevitable that carbon absolutely had to become their hate object.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/sleeping-with-the-enemy/
Pointman
160
“… they picked on carbon as being the root of all evil …”
Perhaps it is all an evil plot by those Silicon-based life forms living in Area 51?
Nah. Never assume a sophisticated motive when pure stupidity is an adequate explanation. Groupthink regresses to the lowest common denominator, and when it comes to environmentalists, there is a lot of groupthink developed around a very low denominator indeed.
60
Okay then, having asked this question, you’ll get an idea why I stay on the subject I think I have some knowledge in, and I leave the Science things to people who have expertise in that area.
The Equator.
Northern Hemisphere weather stays in the Northern Hemisphere, and Southern Hemisphere weather stays in the Southern Hemisphere, and nothing crosses the Equator.
Does the same thing happen with CO2 emissions if they are borne into the Atmosphere, and carried along with the weather systems?
If water vapour (H2O) is considerably lighter than CO2, would not those CO2 emissions stay in the Hemisphere they were emitted from.
Consider that around 95% of those CO2 emissions (and probably even more than that) are in the Northern Hemisphere.
Hey, I know, Tony, stick to electrical power generation.
Tony.
100
This comes under the heading of, “questions we’ve been dying to ask but were too embarrassed to do so”. A reminder that the only stupid question is the one you don’t ask. Well done, Tony.
90
That’s what I wanted to say.
KK 🙂
11
Good question.
In Met class we used to call the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone the “Berlin Wall” cos not much used to get over it (and it’s easier to say) but I’m guessing that while fine particulates might remain in the N hemisphere, the action of gaseous diffusion takes place in a slightly different manner. Gas molecules vibrate at high speed (>100kph) so an increased partial pressure of any one gas would tend towards equalisation fairy soon, whether that be vertically or horizontally in the atmosphere.
I’d welcome correction if I’m wrong with this guess.
10
I’d partially echo John Knowles above, and I’m only guessing too, but I have previously guessed that… the gases mix fairly well between north and south because there is usually a band of rising air near the equator where the latitudinal component of velocity is nearly zero. The air from the two hemispheres is being sucked in towards the equator, thereby being brought into contact with each other. The rising gases could then diffuse horizontally just as you surmised. The air mass may split up and go to separate hemispheres after the air stops rising, which then carries part of NH emissions into SH.
I’m guessing macroscopic meteorological structures like troughs and clouds are diverted equatorially or destroyed by the ITCZ at the same time that the above mixing process begins occurring.
In the case of CO2, the CO2 measurements (according to Mike Hammer) in SH are so close to the NH ones and have remained close over so many years, that you’d have to say it’s a fact the two hemispheres are mixing CO2 fairly well.
I vaguely recall there is a slight delay from NH rise to SH rise, perhaps by a couple of months, but that’s where my memory gets foggy so you’ll have to scout for data on that.
10
There is the seasonal variation in CO2 levels as well. Lower in summer when plants are consuming more and higher in winter when they are not.
The southern hemispheric level is usually about 6 ppm below the northern level, but around the end of the northern summer the two levels coincide.
The politically correct explanation for the variation between halves is that there are more oceans in the southern half, so more absorption of CO2.
It is interesting though, that the variation between north and south is as much as is put into the air every year before absorption. Perhaps the southern hemisphere countries should charge the northern hemispheric countries with a CO2 dumping levy. We could call it the Carbon Tax!
20
Out of the 2065 known nuclear tests,579 of these were atmospheric tests.
Practically every one of these atmospheric tests were carried out during the 1950’s into the early 1970’s when the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed and testing went underground.
And nearly all the tests were done in the northern hemisphere.
The above ground and atmospheric tests threw huge amounts of radioactive dust, debris and gases into the upper atmosphere from where they were transported around the globe.
A lot of research and observations from air sampling tracked this radioactive debris.
It was shown at the time that it took around 15 to 18 months for the radio active particles and gases to cross the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone from the NH into the SH.
Which brings into serious question, one that seems to have been carefully avoided by all climate researchers, as to why there is such a homogeneity and equality between the amounts and distribution but particularly the almost in-step variations in CO2 concentrations between the two hemispheres, particularly when we look at those 50 year old real time observations based on real science.
A very recent article I came across in another source [ can’t find it now ] also used the measured decline in radioactivity CO2 from those times to measure the residence time, the average length of time a CO2 molecule hangs around in the atmosphere before being taken up by biological processes or scrubbed from the atmosphere.
This residence time is important as it means that with a short residence time, the amounts of CO2 won’t build up very fast or hang around for very long thus blowing a huge hole in the alarmists claims of a big CO2 build up and a consequent catastrophic warming of the planet..
Some skeptical researchers claim the CO2 residence time is in the order of about 15 to 20 years or maybe even less.
A long residence time and the alarmists generally claim it is a century or more for a CO2 molecule, would lead to a big buildup in atmospheric CO2 concentrations thus giving grounds for the alarmist claims of a catastrophe in the making.
[ It seems that the IPCC does not publish it’s version of atmospheric CO2 residence times at least in the “Summary for Policy Makers” ]
From memory, the average residence times of the radio active CO2 from the 50’s and 60’s nuclear tests is being measured as only a few as in 25 years before it is taken up by plants or scrubbed from the atmosphere and biologically incorporated into ocean mollusc’s shells to eventually form the carbonate rocks such as limestone, chalk and other similar rock formations which are a huge component of the earth’s upper mantle.
[ have tracked down a couple of articles on atmospheric CO2 residence times . This article “The bombtest curve and its implications for atmospheric carbon dioxide residency time” from WUWT is highly relevant to the above. ]
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I think Jo had a post (video) a few months back that showed CO2 flow through the seasons it might provide some insight into this discusion.
00
Thanks for these responses.
Now I want to point something out here that starkly indicates the value of this site of Joanne’s.
Imagine if you will I had asked this same question at one of the warmist sites. The responses would be those of absolute ridicule and put downs.
Here, I can actually ask questions like this, and people who have that knowledge can come in and reply, stating the facts of the matter, without any scoffing snide remarks, responses that carefully add something new that we all learn from.
See the difference?
Therein lies the same thing that Kevin mentioned at Comment 16.1 when he wrote:
There’s the mindset.
“Man, how I would love to ask that question, because I really want to know, but if I do ask it, I’ll be unmercifully put down.”
Not here you won’t.
Thanks again.
Tony.
80
Well said, Tony.
Gee, if I was to absorb all the valuable information at this place I would need to do a Zaphod and get an extra head attached.
Believe me, commenting on warmist sites is being beamed up to an alternative universe.
20
Marvin.. he was the “go to” guy.. 🙂
20
Nahh!
Slartibartfast! He’s the man.
And hey, if this melting ice caper is the real deal, they may even find his signature soon!
Tony.
10
Yep, Slarti’s the man. He built stuff!
Just imagine how the warmists would feel? After all their efforts and their hand rubbing, basket weaving illogic, a Vogon Space Fleet wipes us out for a mere inter-galactic freeway.
Will it be the next scare???
Watch the dolphins…watch the dolphins.
11
In Fig 1 there is significant CO2 decrease in the hour before actual sun-rise. Is this bcos photosynthesis has already begun in the pre-dawn light ? Pre-dawn bird-song carries frequencies of sound that stimulate stomata opening but I know not the mechanism.
In dry times I mist the whole garden with ultra dilute mineral water before sun-rise as I need to reserve the gravity feed water tank for fire-fighting.
20
Homeopathic gardening? 🙂 Out of interest, what do you dilute the mineral water with?
60
John, two good points there. I can confirm predawn light has a lot of energy. Here is a simple test I have repeated several times. Get a sheet of mild steel, mine is about half a square metre and 3mm thick. Place it on a much larger sheet of polystyrene foam insulation. Fit a contact thermometer to the steel sheet and have a standard thermometer near by to record air temperature. Best results are obtained when there is NO CLOUD overhead. You will find temperature of the steel will start to rise as the sky starts to turn blue overhead. It will rise 2 or 3 degrees above local air temperature until sun breaks the horizon when air temperature then rises. Don’t let the sun shine on the steel, you might lose your contact thermometer. 🙂
The second point is gravity, (although you didn’t mention it in this sense), CO2 is a heavy molecule and will slowly settle under calm conditions. Simple test. Grow two identical small potted plants in your house that do not require direct sunlight. Keep one plant on the floor and the other on a high shelf. See which grows best. I use a tiny plant I only know as ‘peace in the home’.
20
Thanks Richard. Will play. I’m often surprized by real life experiments.
I built a hot air box for my dry compost toilet as it is sometimes frosty at night here and this knocks the microbes around. An old sliding glass door over a black painted sheet of plywood with a 90mm air space produces a steady flow of 40ºC+ air on a sunny winters day at 33ºS. I have the panel standing close to vertical to catch as much winter sun as possible.
00
I simply diluted my mineral concentrate at about 10mls to 5000mls water as over-application is as harmful as deficiency. I tried using a sea-weed mush but it contains plant growth hormones and all my trees grew really tall but with the same number of branches. I then had to tip prune them as apical meristem tissue produces the plants’ own gibberellins. Cut off the tips and you sort-of bonzai them.
20
Thanks. I’ve learnt a new word, “gibberelins”. Now all I’ve got to do is to work out how to introduce it into polite conversation.
30
Be careful. I have had my face slapped for less onomatopoeic words than that. 😉
00
Oh, and you left a letter out, it should be spelt “gibberellins”, with two “el”s.
00
Probablly the gremllins
00
Pre-dawn foliar spraying is common in dry climates. Dan Carlson even sells a CD of stomata music to play to your plants if you have no birdlife but the neighbours might not like it.
http://dancarlsonsonicbloom.com/
00
Complete nonsense!
The American EPA, President Obama and the great bore Gore say carbon dioxide is a dangerous poison – and we should trust what they say about climate.
/ Sarc off.
60
Warmist GHG theory stipulates that a rise in CO2 has a corresponding rise in both water vapor and cloud cover, thus providing the necessary “forcing” for an increase in atmospheric temperatures.
The problem for them however is that the latest research into both cloud cover and water vapor show that these have in fact been falling, not rising, thus falsifying the theory.
We know that temperatures are now in fact falling, despite the continuing rise in CO2 emissions, again falsifying the theory.
Here is a brilliant address by Dr. Don Easterbrook, Professor Emeritus of Geology Western WA University, who sets out the actual data which totally disproves alarmism. His address begins around 10:30. Thanks to Reinder van Til for posting this in the Suzuki thread.
80
I would love to see where the IPCC has said that. I am in a long discussion with an alarmist on Facebook. My case is of course much stronger than his. So he mainly uses strawman tactics. Nevertheless I welcome all information. Thanks in advance
10
I’m in a discussion on this topic also with an alarmist here. I know that the IPCC have this somewhere, so will post back here when I find it. Thus far I just referred them back to SkS 🙂
00
Think about this. At the top of the atmosphere, TOA, there is effectively no water vapour, H20 molecules. N2, O2 and Ar, 99.99% of the atmosphere, can’t radiate. CO2 can. And it is increasing!
10
Consider this then: CO2 is around 40 thousandths of one percent of the atmosphere.
Whoopee doo!!!
So tell me, are we gonna fry?
00
I assume this is the research that was referred to when I learned this stuff in University. Even back then this paper has been around for 25 years. I never actually read the paper, but I was very impressed by the “cycle”. On a few other threads I have “quoted” figures of 1200ppm CO2 as being the peak in the morning. I had understood that this was due to respiration of the crop itself (i.e. during the night the corn ‘burns’ its own boimass to grow).
Now I am wondering if there is some other research that I have connected up with this or I had the numbers messed up in my head all along.
But I agree. Poor plants, starving for CO2. Think of the plants as you drive to work or stoke up the fire.
40
My 23 year old loves his carbon footprint, -a 6 litre V8 ute but at his work, when they stoke up the fires they make ~1000 tonnes CO2/hr.
Actually, that’s only an 80m cube of pure CO2 on the back of my envelope.
00
Interesting reference to dark respiration Grant, a seldom-mentioned and even less frequently understood aspect of the carbon cycle. The D-R action takes place in the near-ground zone in the wee hours, which is also precisely where and when most of the outgoing ground-emitted IR energy is captured by CO2. Forests/crops are warmer than bare ground at night because of radiation interception by leaves AND CO2 increases in night air. One might hypothesise that Mother Gaia tolerates some overnight carbon loss because there is a net positive feedback from warmth captured in the pre-dawn coolness; eg the loss of energy in respired carbon bonds is less than the energy required to warm the leaf and gear up again from a cold morning start (Q10, google it) for daytime photosynthesis.
Land based thermometer records indicate that warming change if any, is occurring mostly at night, in Winter, and I’ve long suspected that is a positive feedback dark respiration effect. Its intresting to consider whether the early morning change is sufficient to bump up the daily and thence annual average temperature, especially since thermometer records are purely max/min or fixed time, never an integrated sum. But temperature is not heat energy, and the integral sum of temps over time is important, so this begs the question of whether such early-morning near-ground short-duration beneficial temperature change (if real) should even be thought of as “climate change”. Roy Spencer has done some interesting work in this area, and has shown that very small changes in convection as a result of a slight warming in the wee hours, would be enough to dissipate any and all “trapped heat” and balance the diurnal cycle.. Ergo no accumulation of heat, despite small overnight/early morning rises in temp which sum to a global “increase”, and ergo no “climate change”, or not as a result of “rising” a-CO2 anyway.
Since we live on planet Aqua, what I’d really like to know is what happens with CO2 over the near-surface of oceans in the wee hours. Presumably there is outgoing IR from water surfaces?
10
Just saw this earlier in my local paper http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/1805193/impact-of-high-carbon-dioxide-levels-in-a-warming-world-is-great-unknown/?cs=61
Ironically these fools are helping the planet while believing they have save it, via their CO2 production.
I’m sure plant saturation levels of CO2 has been done before but just in case……
20
An interesting article Yonnie.
It shows how they will invent a million new research projects that require funding to protect us from the fabled Global Warming gas.
There must have been a cheaper way to test that idea; in a small sealed chamber at 1/10 the cost.
KK
10
Plants suck half the CO2 out of the air around them before lunchtime each day.
Well, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
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21 Sept: Bloomberg: Robert Bryce: Four Numbers Say Wind and Solar Can’t Save Climate
As the discussion unfolds, I would urge everyone to keep four numbers in mind: 32, 1, 30 and 1/2. These are the numbers that explain why any transition away from our existing energy systems will be protracted and costly…
First, 32: That’s the percentage growth in carbon dioxide emissions that has occurred globally since 2002. In the past decade, these emissions have increased by about 8.4 billion tons. And nearly all of that has happened in the developing world. In Asia, emissions rose 86 percent; in the Middle East, 61 percent; and in Africa, 35 percent…
Developing countries — in particular, fast-growing economies such as Vietnam, China and India — simply cannot continue to grow if they limit the use of hydrocarbons. Those countries’ refusal to enact carbon taxes or other restrictions illustrates what Roger Pielke Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, calls the “iron law of climate policy”: Whenever policies “focused on economic growth confront policies focused on emissions reduction, it is economic growth that will win out every time.”
Over the past 10 years, despite great public concern, carbon dioxide emissions have soared because some 2.6 billion people still live in dire energy poverty. More than 1.3 billion have no access to electricity at all…
Last year, global coal use surged by 2 million barrels of oil equivalent per day — three times as much as nonhydro renewables grew…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-20/four-numbers-say-wind-and-solar-can-t-save-climate.html
Bryce sees nuclear as part of the solution…not me. i say build more coal-fired power stations.
50
pat writes this: (my Bolds)
That’s half the people on Earth, and so much for caring about the children and grandchildren etc.
Later today, the IPCC releases its next report, and the media is already spruiking the meme ….. “Worse than we thought.”
Now, here I want to point out the absolute uselessness of the UN, especially those 2 bodies associated with the campaign about CO2 causing dangerous ….. well, everything.
The UNIPCC and the UNFCCC.
Think now about Cancer.
If a patient is found with Cancer, then specialists cut it out, and then treat it with drugs, chemo, radiation etc. On top of that, in an attempt to lower the risk of people getting Cancer, they go backwards and attempt to remove the sources or lower the risk, or even remove the risk completely.
Now the UN bodies. They tell us that they know, conclusively, absolutely, and with positive certainty that CO2 will cause a Cancer for the whole Planet.
Are they cutting it out, like closing all the existing sources of emission, immediately.
Well, no.
Are they then ensuring that the origin of the release of that CO2 is stopped, like ensuring that no new sources are opened up.
Well no.
So then, what are they doing?
They’re making money from it, and monstrously hugely enormous amounts of money.
Are they even sanctioning those Countries who are leaping ahead with constructing plants that add, not just small amounts, but immensely huge amounts of CO2?
Well no ….. again.
Nothing.
Just making money from it, and in the process of doing that, ensuring that other rent seekers (using what the UN bodies say) also make immense fortunes from it.
And doesn’t this failure to act point an accusing finger starkly at Renewable power.
If renewable power actually worked, then the UN would be taking action to ENSURE these still Developing Countries (China and India foremost among them) NOT construct coal fired power plants, but instead install Renewables ….. that is if they worked in the first place.
No, the UN knows that the only option for actually bringing these people into the 20th Century (not even the 21st Century which we live in) is to allow them to build new coal fired power plants in ever increasing numbers, snowballing in fact, plants that have a 50 year life span, ensuring increasing emissions far into the future.
The ONLY other option is Nuclear power generation, and coal fired is infinitely cheaper to construct, and comes on line a lot sooner as well.
So, while those UN bodies preach to the already Developed Countries, you know, the ones with the money that they need, they unflinchingly do not even blink as coal fired power plant construction literally roars away at a pace never before seen in the history of Planet Earth.
These UN bodies can scream that it’s worse than we thought as loudly as they wish.
When those toothless UN bodies actually DO something, maybe then people will sit up and take notice.
Useless money grubbing fundaments, the lot of em!
Tony.
70
Crystal clear again Tony.
00
I figured if plants were consuming more CO2 then there should be more oxygen but I can’t find a plot of oxygen covering the same time frame and the CO2 graphs. Can someone point to a website that plots global oxygen and CO2 together?
Great blog.
20
Raptor,
Percentage O2 vs CO2
10
Thanks. Is that graph done with instruments or some kind of proxy model? I was really hoping to see the recent oxygen levels go up because the plants are using more CO2 therefore more oxygen might help prove more manmade CO2 is good.
11
I’m not sure where the graph originated or how it was done.
The extra CO2 we pump into the air is insignificant compared to the amount of O2 and so an increase to 10,000ppm of CO2 would only drop the O2 level by less than 0.5%, which I may add that 1% level of CO2 would be unrealistic.
But the O2 concentration has varied from just above 10% to nearly 30% over the last 600 million years and has been hovering around 20% for the last couple million years. Again I’m not sure of the ocean Oxygen content over the same time.
But basically all I can see is more CO2 then less O2 (but minimal). All of the data seems to indicate that the earth systems are stabilising and all leveling out.
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Maybe the extra CO2 is just diluting the extra O2 the plants are generating. Sounds logical to me since the O2 should be rising with the huge amount of CO2 the plants consume. As you said the amounts must be tiny anyway.
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No chance. Oxygen is 21%, CO2 is 0.04%. Plants don’t use all that much. 🙂
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So now we know that plants suck.
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This lack of warming since 1997 seems to be driving some extremists mad. But the Bolter cleans up Hamilton nicely.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/ethicist_clive_hamilton_scores_zero_from_four_as_he_ups_the_abuse/#commentsmore
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disgusting!
26 Sept: Bloomberg: Jim Efstathiou Jr: Climate Deniers Misinterpret Data, UN’s Figueres Says
Critics of efforts to address climate change are misinterpreting a slowdown in the pace of global warming, the United Nations’ top climate official said.
Those who deny mankind’s contribution to warming have a “primitive understanding” of the science behind the Earth’s climate, Christiana Figueres, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said today in an interview…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-26/climate-deniers-misinterpret-data-un-s-figueres-says.html
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Pat,
The Presidents Daughter.
She’s had the luxury of power all her life.
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So that’s the official response; keep the faith, double-down on stupid, regurgitate more ad-hominems and hollow rhetoric, attack the man and repeat the mantra.
If I was being pessimistic I’d say the climate debate is becoming a climate brawl against a Giant with a megaphone.
If I was being optimistic I’d say we got `em on the ropes now and all they’ve got left is dirty tricks.
Still have to watch out for those dirty tricks though. Like a bull fight, the enemy may be mortally wounded but it can gore you to death while it’s still kicking.
>”New data has caused the organization to lower predictions of the pace of global temperature increases by 2100″
Crikey! There’s hope for them yet!
Presumably the press conference will be on east coast USA, so we’ve got another 12 hours until the AR5 beast is unleashed.
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Gore me to death? Hahahahahah
good one. But I have statistical odds in my favor.
10
Statistically better odds than facing a Mann eater?
10
There was footage of an AR5 press release on the 5pm news. The tv used the top end of the range, up to 5 degrees by 2100. Bah! No mention that the bottom end of the range was downgraded from (iirc) +1.1 down to +0.3.
Someone lasso those climate models, they’re on the loose! #ipccgonewild.
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Christiana Figueres
Is a qualified ANTHROPOLOGIST and a graduate of a Gestalt institute.
Well qualified to be involved in Climate Change.
KK
20
I often write off topic so please forgive me. But in QLD the media is going ape over some record high September temperatures over the last couple of days. The Brisbane Times (Fairfax ) at least had an onsite display of the centres concerned. A couple of places Charleville was one, I think, had a new record high about 0.5C more than before. However, Nearly all the other sites were the highest since 1988. That’s 25 years ago…a quarter century. That’s close to the range of 30 years for a climate description as established by scientists in the very early 1900s.
The BOM made a drastic forecast for Brisbane yesterday of 37’C but it didn’t get over 31’C. Incidentally, the Brisbane BOM recording station has changed position 3 times. It used to be on a high hill near the CBD receiving cool winds from the bay. In 1988 it was shifted to the new airport right alongside the bay so recordings were even lower. Then, a dozen years or so ago they shifted the site to a place near the CBD.
This is in a park with the busiest roads in Brisbane next to it and about 200m from where I lived my childhood. This spot is protected from breezes and used to be very hot when I played there. However, because the record length is very short records are often broken.
For example, earlier this month on day was said to be a record high for Brisbane. Well OF COURSE it would be. The day was not being compared to the over the century’s worth of records prior to the new site.
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Meanwhile in wonderland…
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/323971-al-gore-there-needs-to-be-a-political-price-for-denial
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There is a price, Al baby, Labor got dumped for denying natural climate change.
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Yes in greenhouse those Tomatoes and other small starter plants in fabric pots looks great and green but when those plants gets sent to stores and garden nurseries they begin to weaken because they are no longer in a CO2 rich greenhouse.
Their idyllic childhood comes quickly an end then pout for a while until they are acclimated to the lower CO2 level.Then they start growing again at a slower pace than before even if you did everything right simply because it is now getting less CO2 than before.
The lesson I learned long ago was to buy weak looking Tomato plants is because they are the ones that have reset themselves to a lower CO2 level and ready to grow again when planted.The dark green ones will do little for a while in your garden thus losing growing days time.
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the Yale crowd who put out fake CAGW surveys all the time. maybe Leiserowitz only understands English!
25 Sept: MinutemanNews: Meg Learson Grosso: Yale expert: Public has 6 views on climate change
Doubt and/or debate over whether there is climate change is limited to only four countries, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the United States. “We don’t find it anywhere else,” said Leiserowitz (Anthony Leiserowitz, Director of Yale Center for Climate Change Communication), who attributes it possibly to the fact that three of those countries were frontier countries with a cultural myth of being independent. “The more individualistic (a person’s) view, the more they’re against climate change action.”…
http://www.minutemannewscenter.com/articles/2013/09/25/fairfield/news/doc52430636e1803914299252.txt?viewmode=fullstory
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21 Sept: Yahoo 7: AFP: UN climate report will not sway US deniers
Americans’ views on climate change are closely linked to their political orientations; those who doubt the theory of evolution and believe in creationism are often climate skeptics or deniers, according to Joe Casola, an expert at the ***Center for Climate and Energy Solutions in Washington…
According to Greenpeace, these lobbies have funnelled nearly $150 million to more than 80 conservative groups from 2002 to 2011. Among the largest donors are billionaires Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries, as well as oil giant ExxonMobil.
“Their intent is to intimidate scientists and, indeed, to get them to second guess themselves,” said Michael Mann, professor at Penn State University and author of “The Hockey Stick and the Climate War.”
“In that sense, the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by industry front groups and individuals like the Koch Brothers to attack and intimidate the scientists have partly achieved their goal,” Mann told AFP.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/19036404/un-climate-report-will-not-sway-us-deniers/
Wikipedia: Center for Climate and Energy Solutions
The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) transitioned from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in November 2011 …
The Pew Center has also partnered with several companies, including Entergy and Alcoa, for the Make an Impact program. The program is designed to help individuals take action to reduce their carbon footprints and includes a custom-built carbon calculator…
A nonprofit, tax-exempt organization under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3), the Pew Center was supported by a range of individuals and charitable organizations, primarily the Pew Charitable Trusts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Climate_and_Energy_Solutions
regarding Pew, be sure to link to Taibbi’s new 5-page article, which includes (on page 5)- “With public budgets carefully scrutinized by everyone from the press to regulators, the black box of pension funds makes it the only public treasure left that’s easy to steal”:
26 Sept: Rolling Stone Blog: Matt Taibbi: Looting Public Pensions: A New Think-Tank Study
I was originally turned on to this story by old friend David Sirota, who wrote a massive report on the subject for a new progressive think tank, the Institute for America’s Future. We talked about the subject a lot in the last months and timed it so that his report would also be released today. I urge everyone to read his report (you can find it here), which goes into far more detail than my piece did, especially about Arnold and his relationship with “centrist” organizations like Pew Charitable Trusts…
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/looting-public-pensions-a-new-think-tank-study-20130926
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Jo, off topic, but ABC’s 7.30 Report last night almost had a balanced discussion on global warming. IPCC faces criticism ahead of report’s release, but of course included some scary visuals.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3857357.htm?
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Thanks to everyone posting very interesting information and ideas on the role of CO2 in our atmosphere.
Very informative and appreciated. 🙂
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Kinda off topic but I’m sure some of our regulars here will await with bated breath for the answer to Jo’s question.
20
Couldn’t script it better.
The Surrealist said:
In response to Jo’s question about ENSO, The Surrealist then said:
The Surrealist doesn’t even know he’s doing it.
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Erm, that was my question.
I’m trying to decide if I should even bother with a reply.
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I like this from the chiefio.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/of-trees-volcanos-and-pond-scum/
A fast forest can completely delete about twice as much
volume of air as sits above that forest, (all the way to
space, of co2 in 1 year,and a fertile pond growing pond
scum, can delete it about 20x faster in one year.
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The Cherry Picker of Cherry Pickers report is do out within the hour.
Can hardly wait to see what form of words they could agree on .
IPCC – it’s more certain than we thought – OMG
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I’m hard put to figure out how you could arrange to do a meaningful statistical analysis of the IPCC’s data or anyone else’s. Against what standard do you compare warming in the first place? No one has ever had the nerve to declare what the ideal temperature of the Earth should be in the first place. And in the second place — and with all due respect to Lord Monkton and Jo as well — the theory that CO2 actually acts as supposed when in the atmosphere is unproven.
Now when I went through school you weren’t allowed to say, “I assume a and b to be true, therefore c follows and must be accepted as true.” Let a be the lack of an objective standard and b be the unproven theory. c therefore is just garbage. It remains garbage even if you accept b as true.
The sheer brass nerve of these so-called scientists is a monumental affront to science and straight thinkers everywhere.
20
In NZ, the Green sctivist centered MSM are vigorously peddling, nay celebrating, the ‘certainty of human caused climate change’ as recognised by hundreds of scientists. It is the lead item on the main news today, and of course pronounced in suitably grave, stentorian and sonorus tones.
There isn’t the slightest whiff of debate, of uncertainty or of counter argument. There is an extraordinary and absolute absence of any counterpoint whatsoever.
I anticipated this and yet, foolish as it may be, I still find myself surprised and eventually angered.
10
I pee sea, see! The oceans will rise! Wah! The Goracle has spoken.
20
What I just can’t understand is the immense power of group think. Most of us learnt about the concept of photosynthesis and that CO2 is an important plant food in grade 4 or 5 (age 9 or 10). Every scientist in the world would surely agree that it is essential to life, yet there is a tidal wave of aggressive group think that has turned a plant food that it is essential to life on earth into a “pollutant”.
In a few hundred years, this era of history, will be studied for the incredible power of marketing and propaganda in that a small bunch of un-elected bureaucrats whom 99.9% of the world could name not one, persuaded the largest and most developed governments in the world, and their media, to forget what they were taught as a 9 year old and that is still scientifically agreed and to believe that CO2 was in fact not a plant food and essential to life on earth but a pollutant.
I wonder some times if I am actually living in a parallel universe and every now an again I look over the fence and see their universe where strange things happen, like CO2 is a pollutant.
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This post clearly implies that terrestrial Net Primary Production is non-zero on a daily scale.
The Mauna Loa CO2 record shows that terrestrial NPP is non-zero on a monthly scale.
Satellite data indicates that terrestrial NPP is non-zero on a decadal scale.
So, any atmospheric model that doesn’t include terrestrial life (as an actor, not substrate) is incomplete.
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“So, any atmospheric model that doesn’t include terrestrial life (as an actor, not substrate) is incomplete.”
You are in good company:
“The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics and do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields, farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in.“
– Dr. Freeman Dyson
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That loud sucking sound I hear is real then? 😉
On the more serious side, I wonder how many people realize that like all living things that carry on a metabolism requiring oxygen, green plants also produce CO2. And they are consumers of O2 and producers of CO2 regardless of whether they have the light they need for photosynthesis. Fortunately they end up being net consumers of CO2 and producers of O2 if they get enough light to do it.
I never cease to be amazed at how much every living thing on earth, with only a few exceptions, depends on sunlight and that one single process, photosynthesis. And many other things that don’t do photosynthesis depend on it indirectly, like fungi. The sun is truly the source of not only heat but food for all living things.
In spite of its extremes the Earth has been very hospitable to life. We do need to take care to solve our real pollution and other problems instead of the imaginary one posed by CO2.
To our collective shame, we are not doing that well enough at all.
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“In spite of its extremes the Earth has been very hospitable to life.”
However, it’s also advantageous to point out in any discussion debunking CAGW that while a small number of species are hardy enough to live in the extreme temperature fluctuations that occur at the poles, the HUGE majority of species thrive in the comparatively much warmer and much more stable temperature found in the tropics.
Energy is what makes things ‘go’ – including all life, (primarily via photosynthesis as you point out), and there’s a lot more energy for life in the warm places.
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“The afternoon sun goes a-wasted as plants growth slows because CO2 levels are not high enough.”
But… ignoring wind effects, if the plants didn’t get much sun in the morning, (due to say, a mountain top in the east – not shaded by other plants or trees), there would be reduced photosynthesis and wouldn’t then more CO2 just “hang around” available for plants to absorb when they finally get sun later in the day?
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Technically Jo, this is a bad example; correct but not correct. To set Mike M straight as well …
Corn is a C4 plant; like all C4 plants, it does its own CO2 concentration, within its leaves – it uses its respired air (all plants respire) as well as takes some from the atmosphere, which makes it very efficient. (As a group they don’t respond to elevated CO2) C4’s also control their breathing – their stomates open in the morning, for air exchange, then to reduce their water loss, they shut them tightly during the heat of the day – their leaves then stay busy, using high-intensity sunlight and their “stored” CO2 to produce sugar more efficiently than any other groups of plants. All things equal, corn and “soft” C3 plants growing side by side; the C3’s will wilt easily, because they don’t have good stomatal control, and stop growing around 20 to 25 degrees C; the corn will resist wilting and has no upper temperature boundary within that likely to be the absolute range. On the other hand, corn won’t do so well, or as efficiently where C3 plants grow best (lower latitudes; 10 to 20 degrees or less). (In nature, the conditions overlap between seasons of course; so we have winter-growing (C3) and summer growing (C4) grasses.) While corn is CO2 insensitive; within their ideal temperature range, soft C3 plants can be stirred along with additional CO2. This stuff was mainly researched back in the 1960’s with great enthusiasm; when science was research. Australian scientists led the charge (I could give you some names). There have been books written on it!)
So the concept is quite correct, but corn is a bad example along with sorghum; + a wide range of Oz native grasses; and other tropicals. Importantly, C4 only applies to grasses and because they are well adapted to tropical and arid and semi-arid zones (for different reasons incidentally – there are 2 main groups of C4’s); and stuffed land; they are the worlds’ worst weeds!
Cheers,
Bill
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You fibbed Bill (I realised after I posted);
Species of Chenopods (not all) are also C4. These plants are extremely drought-hardy. They also concentrate salt in their tissue which helps then extract water from near-dry soil, and the air. They maintain their salt balance by exuding salt from small pores on their leaves; hence they are called saltbushes and they are found (generally) in very low rainfall areas. They are also (generally) woody, which means they don’t depend on their “internal” turgor or water-pressure to maintain their structure. Brilliant plants I must say; and a lot’s been written on them as well (especially in OZ). There is always a tradeoff between adaptability and growth rate, so don’t expect that because some species are efficient, they grow rapidly. Corn is both efficient and a rapid-grower, but it needs much more water than saltbush. On the other hand, give saltbush lots of water, it won’t grow as fast as corn, and probably not much faster than if had much less water (generally).
Interesting eh?
Cheers,
Bill
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Yes your ABC is somewhat looney but for the ultimate in loonesy google ‘CBC news manitoba desert disappearing’
Canada is experiencing a record grain harvest so much so that we have totally run out of storage space. Our national broadcaster has managed to find a negative to this as a desert is being greened due to CO2/climate change and we are losing an endangered species of insect – oh boohoo!
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Hmmmm a 7pm sunset in Iowa in July? whoops!
Interesting report though, thanks for posting
[They are right sunset would not happen at 7pm in Iowa in July (more like 9pm). I haven’t had time to look at the story. ]ED
[Thanks, interesting point. I don’t know — is the sunrise time accurate, or are “growing” sunlight hours defined differently? If sunset is at 9pm ( is that DST?) wouldn’t sunrise be at 4am or so? I recall it being later than that in the paper. – Jo]
[According to my app, sunrise July 1 is at 5:30am in Minneapolis (north of Iowa by about 150 miles) DST goes into effect in the spring (second weekend in March) so these times would be advanced by one hour because of DST.]
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