Worrying About CO2

Some of you better informed people will have to help me with this one. It has been hard to get answers from usually good web sources. All the squawking is about 'Green Energy' and how it will save us from those dreaded greenhouse gases.

Listening to T. Boone Pickens this morning, it was clear that he believes that oil will return to around one-hundred dollars a barrel by the end of the year. The 'Greens' want the price of oil to rise substantially to prevent having to use it more than necessary. But is their worry about our CO2 usage justified or just political maneuvering.

A Look at CO2

Like anyone who wants to write about a subject, I did a lot of research from the best sources possible. One of the sites that I used data from was the charts from the Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii. You can see the CO2 increases from 1979 -Jan 2009 by going to this website.

ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt

Make no mistake; the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing. But when you dig a little deeper into the data, certain trends become evident. The rate of CO2 increase has been slowing slightly for the past 4 years.

Without cherry-picking the data, I took the most recent entry - January 2009 and the three preceding months. I averaged these four months since 2004. The results are as follows.

Months Oct, Nov, Dec, and January averages:

Year--------------Four Mo. Average -----Increase Over previous Year

2008-2009-------384.88 ppm------------1.7 ppm

2007-2008-------383.18 ppm------------2.19 ppm

2006-2007-------380.99 ppm------------1.8 ppm

2005-2006-------379.175 ppm-----------2.535 ppm

2004-2005-------376.64 ppm

Note: ppm = parts per million

The difference between the 2004/2005 to 2005/2006 was the most notable increase with 2.535 ppm. When we scrutinize the data, one has to conclude that he growth rate is decreasing. If you visit the website above, you can make your own determinations about CO2 growth.

CO2 growth rate changes are not new. These changes in the growth rate coincide nicely with the solar cycle. The growth rate slows a little during the periods when the Suns activity is at a minimum. At the present, the Sun is in an extended Minimum period. The expected increase in Sunspot activity has not started yet.

CO2 Graph Click to Enlarge



Notice how the CO2 growth rate dips slightly at each of the minimum periods of the 11-year solar cycle. The next graph is a comparison of several of the last solar cycles. Pay particular attention to the greater magnitude of cycle 17, 20, and 23. Those increases in the magnetic storms (Sunspots) cause about a 1% gain in irradiance from the Sun during the maximum part of the cycle. Most cyclic minimums do not last long enough to change the Earth's climate very much but the increase in the magnitude of the cycles as shown by the graph has meaningful effects.

Comparison of Late Solar Cycles:
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The past several cycles have shown an increase in the Sun's activities. As a result, over time, the oceans of the Earth have responded by warming. Why is that important? The Oceans act as a buffer against sudden climate changes on Earth. It takes years to warm them up and years to cool them down. The reluctance of the oceans to change abruptly means that our climate remains decently steady. But there are consequences to the oceans cooling as well as warming.

As the oceans warm, they release more CO2 into the atmosphere, and conversely, cooler oceans absorb more CO2. That means that the CO2 corollary to global warming is just the reverse of what we are told. CO2 has been increasing because of the warming of the Oceans, not the other way around. Since 2007, the Oceans have been cooling. There has been less radiance from the Sun during this minimum part of the solar cycle, and the oceans have reacted by cooling. The following Sea Surface Temperature maps will demonstrate that the oceans of the world are in a cooling phase. Ocean cooling is a gradual process but non-the-less, cooling is cooling.

Sea Surface Temperatures Jan-2001
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Sea Surface Temperatures Jan-2007
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Sea Surface Temperatures Jan-2009
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2001 and 2009 match up very evenly while 2007 is obviously the warmest. The most severe Arctic recorded ice-melting period was in 2007. The year 2007 represented the highest loss of Arctic ice in our records. But the trend of ocean warming has ended and we are now in a cooling period as the sea surface temperature maps demonstrate. The warming oceans caused measurable problems noted in the oceans coral reefs, sea-ice melting, and an added violence to the large storms that generate over the oceans. Some of this telltale activity may continue, although with a decrease in magnitude if the oceans continue to cool. The fly in the soup is whether the Sun will maintain its current state. The prediction is that the normal cyclical nature of magnetic storms on the Sun will resume in the near future, but that is only a prediction. Historically we know that the Sun enters long periods of low activity. The last extended low activity period, known as the little ice age, or the Maunder-Minimum occurred from 1645-1715.

The theory is that the cyclical nature of solar activity is caused by the Suns motion with respect to the barycenter of the solar system. The barycenter is the theoretical center of mass for the solar system with the Sun at its center. However, the gravitational pull of the orbiting planets causes the Sun to wobble slightly as the planets rotate around it. The 11-year solar cycle coincides very well with the planet Jupiter. Jupiter takes just over 11 years to circumnavigate the Sun and the Jupiter tidal effect on the Sun probably most certainly influences the magnetic pole shift as well as the sunspot activity (which are magnetic storms).

There is one more celestial event that is worth mentioning, and that is the 'solar jerk'. The 'solar jerk' is the changing of the Suns position with respect to the center of gravity of the solar system. When all of the planets are aligned on the same side, their combined gravitational pull is thought to be able to shift the solar system center of gravity outside of the photosphere of the Sun. Whereas if Jupiter is on the opposite side of the Sun with respect for the rest of the planets, the solar system center of gravity is contained within the photosphere of the Sun. These particular alignments are cyclical and happen less frequently than the normal ebb and flow of the solar cycle. The effect of the 'solar jerk' on the Earth's climate is a subject of much debate among scientists.

Those who predict what the near future of Earth's climate differ dramatically. However, they generally agree that if the solar activity stays low (decrease in irradiance to Earth) that more cooling is probable.

Back to CO2:

I can safely state that the CO2 increases seen at the present come largely from the warming of the oceans. All of man's endeavors only result in about 3% of the increase of CO2. Further, CO2 is a greenhouse gas in that it absorbs some portions of the infrared spectrum. But CO2 is also shown to release that energy very quickly through the process of convection. The concentration of CO2 on Earth is very tiny, measured in parts per million. It makes up less than 1% of our atmosphere.

The Earth also has the advantage of not having a layered atmosphere. Our atmosphere is homogeneous because it stays mixed by the wind and convection currents. Warm updrafts lift the hot air to the cooler upper atmosphere releasing heat. When you look up into the sky and see clouds, you know that the process is working. Clouds form when rising warm moist air condenses in the cooler atmosphere.

Venus is not so lucky. They have an atmosphere that is almost all CO2. Venus has a forty plus mile high column of CO2 that blankets the planet. CO2 is heavier than water, so the atmosphere is almost a soup with very little opportunity to lose the stored heat by the convection process. So Venus is a very warm planet. Compounding the problems on Venus is the length of its day. The day on Venus is actually longer than its solar year. There is not much temperature diversity on Venus for wind creation; also, the slow rotation of the planet contributes to this. Venus is a sad situation because with today's technology, man's survival or exploration of the planet is next to impossible.

What we can expect on Earth if the ocean temperatures continue to decline is the levels of atmospheric CO2 declining. The cooling oceans will absorb more of the atmospheric CO2. One last note on CO2 is the amount of biology that we are taking from the oceans. All life is carbon based, and when we take a lot its biology from the oceans by fishing, whaling, and other ocean harvesting, the carbon that is contained within that biology releases into the atmosphere. Kelp, fish, mollusks, and whales that we harvest from the oceans all contribute to the increase in atmospheric CO2.

Cheers,

-Robert-