CO2 concentrations follows upward temperatures, true or false?

Your question and the warmer answer hit the nail on the head as to why their mock certainty is nothing but a charade. As per the admission of Baccheus and a number of other warmists, CO2 in the past served as a positive feedback and did not serve as a driver of temps. Further in the past, they will have to freely admit, there were oterh factors that served as a greater negative feedback then CO2 did as a positive feedback, otherwise temps would have either plummeted to absolute zero or skyrocketed to Venus-like temps. Since neither occurred, thy have tacitly acknowledged that CO2 was not a driver of temps in the past and served as a relatively weak postive feedback in the past.

So this begs the question. They are using correlation from the past to model what the future will bring. so in the past, temps would rise because of some other catastrophic cause, CO2 would then follow and cause some positive feedback while it followed. Now they are saying that CO2 is serving as a driving force and they are using the correlation from the past to determine the strength of the driving force. But wait, CO2 wasn't a driving force in the past and was in the back seat. There were others forces causing the change in the past and CO2's correlation was just side effect of CO2 following temps. So how would they know how much change CO2 can cause.

A simple analogy is CO2 in the backseat of a car with a working engine. Clearly the speed of CO2 and the car would be highly correlated. Now if CO2 got out of the car, would CO2 then be able to push the car at the same speed as it went with an engine?

This is why I agree that we need to reduce CO2 and that it can cause some warming, but I think their claim to certainty and scare-mongering prediction leave a lot to be desired in the way of scientific reasoning and following the scientific process.

Hey Dook,

Nice link! Basically it is saying that CO2 does follow temps, it was even predicted that it would do so, other factors have played a much more important role in the past for temp change, and the skeptics are entirely right about this. Only you could reference a link that says that the skeptics are right, in a site that always state that the skeptics are wrong and think you have proven your point. Your real problem is that you seem to think that it is the tail leading the dog, the back seat passenger driving the car, and the trace gas CO2 controlling the temp of the world.

Baccheus,

IIF I were claiming that CO2 could not have caused any of the 0.74 degree rise, you would be correct, but I am not. I am saying it 1.) has not caused all of it (as evidence by the warming prior to 1950) 2.) that the 1.2 degree rise per 100 years does not mean a 7 degree rise in the next 100. In other words, your justification for exponential rise is what I have the problem with. It seems to be based upon logical fallacies and the horrid psuedo-science of "our comps are really really smart and you need to beleive whatever the comp models say". Here is a hint comp are just as smart as bricks and the models coming out of them are useless if the assumptions going in are wrong. Your models consistently overestimating should be a clue.

Given the question of CO2 following temperatures or vice versa I often wonder what the intent of people who use this argument is. Are they claiming that the burning of fossil fuels of a direct, natural way of atmospheric CO2 increase? I certainly hope not.

The atmosphere is increasing at a rate of roughly 2ppm or 15.6 billion tons per year. Human emissions account for over 30 billion tons per year. As a consequence the partial pressure, or the pressure if CO2 occupied the space alone, is increasing. This leads directly into Le Chatelier's principle, which states that if a chemical system at equilibrium experiences a change in concentration, temperature, volume or partial pressure then the equilibrium shifts and a new equilibrium is established. Normally, during a warming period, outgassing or exhaling of CO2 from the oceans would occur and the concentration of CO2 would follow temperature changes. Currently, however, CO2 is not following temperature and the oceans are breathing or absorbing more CO2 than they are exhaling due to the increase in partial pressure.

http://bouman.chem.georgetown.edu/S02/lect8/lect8....

So while the answer to your question is true it is dependent on the time period given.

Yes that's true. Temperature drives the amount of CO2 in the air, NOT the other way around like Al Gore and all his Warmist con-artists want you to believe. Watch Al Gore grudgingly admit this fact during hearings before Congress.

http://www.breitbart.tv/uncovered-testimony-gore-a...

As temperatures rise the oceans warm, when the oceans warm they release vast amounts of CO2. The reverse happens also. This is the only fact you need to know in order to determine the whole man-made Global Warming movement is FRAUD.

Beside that, there is no correlation between the amount of CO2 in the air and any rise in temperature, see the graphs below.

http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/correlatio...

(also)

http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08...

(also)

Sixty prominent German scientists declare in an open letter that rising CO2 has “had no measurable effect” on temperatures and that Global Warming is a “pseudo religion”

http://climatedepot.com/a/2282/Consensus-Takes-Ano...

But why the big push to convince everyone that humans are causing the problem? The answer is simple, the elitist involved in this globalist scam want to tax CO2, which is the perfect object of a tax because no person can live without creating it, we exhale it after all.

And nearly every form of combustion creates CO2, so it allows for taxation on a very broad scale. And they also want to create a trading exchange for carbon. These schemes combined would be worth billions --- perhaps trillions of dollars as the plan matures.

There is much more to know about this scam, I suggest you watch these two videos linked below:

The Great Global Warming Swindle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaTJJCPYhlk

Global Warming Doomsday Called Off

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-330991046...

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These graphs show it even better and you can also see how it's the Sun's activity that is actually driving temperature --- NOT CO2.

http://creation.com/images/fp_articles/2007/5256fi...

The graph on the left is: CO2 and Temperature produced by astrophysicists from Harvard University and published in 2005 in the Journal of the American Geophysical Union.

The graph on the Right is: The Sun and Temperature, produced independently by scientists from NASA and America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Both graphs chart the period 1880 to year 2000, a substantial window of time. Notice in the graph on the left (CO2 and Temperature) that indeed temperature is rising FIRST and then CO2 follows.

Now look at the graph on the right (Sun and Temperature) and notice that the Sun’s activity almost perfectly correlates with the temperature variations.

The obvious take-away from this should be that the Sun is in control and CO2 is merely a slave to the Sun’s activity. CO2 isn’t driving anything --- it’s following. You can see that the initial heat was caused by the Sun. But as the graphs show, there is no indication that the Sun got out of the drivers seat at any time and handed warming over to CO2.

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CO2 concentrations at the moment follow the upward temperatures i.e CO2 is going up at the same time as a temperature. In the past this is sometimes the case and sometimes not. The most common example used is that in past past CO2 has gone up 200-1000 years after temperature. The reason behind this is the significant lag time between the temperatures going up (caused by either solar activity or by changes in the earths orbit) and the deep oceans heating up. Once the deep oceans begin to heat up they begin to release CO2 and this speeds up the rate of warming through the greenhouse effect. So the initial trigger is not the greenhouse effect but the greenhouse effect enhances it.

I would argue that the fact temperatures are going up with CO2 at the moment and there is no change in solar activity or our orbit is proof that it is not natural because under natural conditions the temperature rise should preceed CO2 it doesn't.

Both, but you'd have to clarify what time period you're talking about, and not only when but where.

Before the industrial revolution, when we could at least guarantee that contributions to climatic change from humans was minimal at best, CO2 rise would lag behind the temperature rise of ice core data in the southern hemisphere (i.e. Antarctica). As it pertains to the recent glacial termination for instance (the warming leading up to the Holocene), the southern ocean started to warm before CO2 concentrations rose. The lag between the two is some 800 years (several hundred at least); warmer waters are less capable of holding dissolved gases than cooler waters, so as the oceans warmed they would degas CO2. The lag is likely due to the long time it takes for oceans to turn over, to bring CO2-enriched waters up to the surface where it can be exchanged.

In any case we see that lag in Antarctic cores. The effect was predicted before it was observed in detail, in this paper:

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1990/1990_Lorius_et...

That being said, since the mechanism is Milankovitch --> local warming --> CO2 degassing --> CO2 spreading --> global warming --> CO2 degassing (etc.), we would expect to not see such a lag in the northern hemisphere, since orbital forcing from Milankovitch cycles affect only given hemispheres. As far as I know, and as suggested by here for instance:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Atmospheric+CO...

("[PDF] from psu.edu")

there is no reliable CO2 record that can be discerned from ice cores in the north, which makes this a difficult prediction to falsify.

However, CO2 and deuterium are not the only gases we can observe in cores; methane is also observable. What we see from cores in Antarctica is that, since methane will rather rapidly disperse evenly through the atmosphere, methane rises *after* CO2 does. However, methane deposits are an indicator of warming in the northern hemisphere or lower latitudes, which would mean that the warming followed CO2 rise in the north.

http://icebubbles.ucsd.edu/Publications/CaillonTer...

Anyways, since CO2 and temperature do act as a coupled feedback mechanism (we know this from both strong correlation, yes, but also from physics that has been established for decades; we know CO2 is a GHG), if we were to take a planet and change one of the two variables on it, we would expect a response in the other toward the same direction (i.e. more heat = more CO2, more CO2 = more heat). This is where the anthropogenic factor comes in, and it fits that analogy really well since it's for all intents and purposes a real-life example of that thought experiment.

A couple main takeaways:

- past CO2 lagged temperature in the south, not the north; more appropriately perhaps, it lags where Milankovitch cycles cause warming, and leads where it causes warming from its own effect as a GHG;

- simply projecting that fact onto a scenario like today where the warming certainly isn't leading the CO2 rise anywhere is not as straightforward as we might like to think it is.

I think it is also worth pointing out that of course CO2 was not the only major feedback, nor does it constitute the largest portion of the equilibrium temperature response. Albedo and water vapor feedback are very important too in this respect.

False

If you were to ask if CO2 concentrations followed upward temperature in the past, the answer would have been true. When the dominant forcing for temperature was orbital variations, CO2 concentrations did indeed follow temperature. Since the cave men did not drive SUVs, a natural mechanism was required to change the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. As the Earth warmed, the solubility of carbon dioxide in the oceans dropped and the oceans released carbon dioxide. Additionally, when the permafrost thawed in places like Kansas, methane was released and was later oxidized to carbon dioxide. The reason why temperatures started to drop while carbon dioxide was climbing is because the increase of carbon dioxide concentration was rising at the expense of the concentration of methane. Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Jim z

<We can state that CO2 concentrations consistently lagged temperature in the past. This indicates that CO2 wasn't driving the temperature. This doesn't fit with alarmist's needs so they theorized a "coupled feedback" where CO2 and temperature are linked.>

The reason why "coupled feedback" is necessary is the laws of thermodynamics. Undoubtedly, the concentrations of other volatile trace substances, such as mercury and chlorine would have also lagged temperature, but since mercury and chlorine do not have dipole moments, they do not absorb thermal infrared. Carbon dioxide does absorb infrared and even if the agent which causes its concentration to increase is warming, the law of conservation of energy requires it to cause more warming. This is a positive feedback.

< They ignore other factors such as water vapor, or solar>

What plant food. No one ignores the fact that water vapor is a very important feedback. But water vapor concentration is tied to temperature. The influence of the Sun on climate is well studied.

http://www.mps.mpg.de/dokumente/publikationen/sola...

http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/mpa/publications/pr...

http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri/lockwood2007.pdf

Co2 concentrations lag temperature changes, true.

Historically speaking yes, due to the existence of other forcings (elements which cause the temperature to increase such as solar radiation, etc.).

But it is a vicious circle as higher CO2 concentrations also lead to higher temperatures.

So CO2 concentrations alone also cause upward temperatures, as is the case now since all other forcings have been shown either non existent or without a significant effect on the temperature.

According to the ice core samples, it is true.

We can state that CO2 concentrations consistently lagged temperature in the past. This indicates that CO2 wasn't driving the temperature. This doesn't fit with alarmist's needs so they theorized a "coupled feedback" where CO2 and temperature are linked. They ignore other factors such as water vapor, or solar because their main objective isn't science or facts; it is to try and blame CO2 emissions so that they can use it to push their failed and extremely unpopular political agenda that wouldn't stand a chance in hell of passing without lies, distortions, and exaggerations. That is why lies, distortions, and exaggerations, e.g AGW, have become their modus operandi.

As is typical Bacheus pretends to know things he doesn't.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/28/spencer-pt2-...

In summary Dr. Spencer asks <<<.If the C13/C12 relationship during NATURAL inter-annual variability is the same as that found for the trends, how can people claim that the trend signal is MANMADE??>>>

Baccheus claiming I am ignorant is like a kindergartner claiming a college professor is ignorant. His ignor-rants are always without substance. He offers no facts, just the same old tired leftist crap that we have come to expect from him and his fellow ignoramouses. Facts are not their friends and I will continue to hound them with them. .