Role of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels (Don Bogard, Ed Berry) USofA

Source: group e-mail discussion

Role of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels Discussion: Ed Berry, physicist and Don Bogard, chemist July 2019 Ed Berry My position is well known: (1) human CO2 is insignificant to the rise in atmospheric CO2 (2) atmospheric CO2 has an insignificant effect on temperature.

Don Bogard The influence of growing ATM CO2 on global TEMP is a totally different subject from why ATM CO2 is increasing. Several members of The Right Climate Stuff accept a role for greenhouse gases in warming, but not as great a role as climate model predictions about the future.

Ed Berry 1. The physics model accurately replicates the most accurate D14C data available from 1970 to 2014.

These data include all the D14C introductions you list between these years.

2. The physics model cannot predict new introductions of D14C and the lack of the ability to predict the future does not discredit the model.

Neither can the model be expected to say anything about the original source of the increase of 14C which occurred in the past. It has no knowledge of the atomic bomb tests.

3. The model's replication of the D14C data from 1970 to 2014 takes advantage of an "experiment" where the high level of D14C decayed to very close to its balance level.

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These data provide a unique opportunity to test the hypothesis that outflow equals level divided by e-time for ATM CO2. The replication confirms that hypothesis.

4. All valid CO2 models must be able to replicate these data, or the model is wrong.

5. The physics model says simply that the outflow of CO2 from the atmosphere equals the level divided by the residence time. That is a very important piece of information. It says, for example, that outflow is not a function of inflow, as many IPCC papers claim.

6. The model says the ratio of human to natural CO2 in the atmosphere equals the ratio of their inflows, independent of e-time. This proves natural CO2 increased its inflow since 1750, contrary to the IPCC fundamental claim, and natural CO2 caused most of the increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1750. It limits the amount of human-caused increase in atmospheric CO2 to about 18 ppm.

7. The physics model shows the e-time for CO2 is the same for all ratios of level-tobalance-level, contrary to IPCC claims. It shows the level remains constant when at its balance level when inflow is constant, even as CO2 molecules are exchanged between reservoirs. This shows that the natural replacement of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere is irrelevant to the level of CO2 in the atmosphere or to what caused the level of CO2 to increase.

8. The physics model shows the CO2 e-time has been constant since 1970, and therefore, likely before 1970, contrary to IPCC Bern model claims. This has a major consequence.

It means the release of human CO2 has not overburdened nature with excess CO2. It means nature has absorbed human CO2 without any effort. It means human CO2 has not decreased the buffer capacity of the oceans, as the IPCC claims. It means the argument the release of carbon stored in fossil fuels has not changed the e-time for atmospheric CO2. And this means the argument that human CO2 has produced feedback that causes the increase in atmospheric CO2 is invalid.

9. The physics model shows the common perception that human CO2 somehow sticks in the atmosphere forever, is wrong. The model shows that CO2 flows through the atmosphere as water flows through a lake and out over a dam. It shows the rise in the level is not a function of accumulation but a function of the flow through the lake or the atmosphere.

10. The physics model shows how Bogard's pond model really works. The physics model should be applied to each pond so numerical calculations can be performed.

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Ed Berry Here is Section 5.8 of my paper, Human CO2 Emissions Have Little Effect on Atmospheric CO2 (with my added bolding) that summarizes past work that shows ice-core data are not a valid proxy for maximum CO2.

Siegenthaler and Joos observed that even ice-core data show CO2 increased by 17 ppm when the total human CO2 emissions were only 5 ppm. This increase was obviously not driven by human emissions.

5.8 Ice-core data IPCC claims “the observational CO2 records from ice cores … show that the maximum range of natural variability about the mean of 280 ppm during the past 1000 years was small.”

Using this invalid claim, IPCC assumes natural CO2 emissions remained constant within about one percent. IPCC’s invalid claim about ice-core data is the basis of IPCC’s invalid claim that human CO2 causes all the increase in atmospheric CO2 above 280 ppm. This increase is presently 130 ppm or 32 percent.

Siegenthaler and Joos [30] observed that ice-core data show natural CO2 increased by 17 ppm or 6 percent before 1900, when human CO2 emissions totaled only 5 ppm.

These ice-core data contradict IPCC’s claim that natural CO2 emissions stayed constant after 1750.

Jaworowski [12] explains why ice-core data do not properly represent past atmospheric CO2. He concludes nature produces 97 percent of atmospheric CO2.

Proxy ice-core values for CO2 remained low for the past 650,000 years [10, 12]. If these ice-core values represent atmospheric CO2, then atmospheric CO2 did not cause any of the global warming in the last 650,000 years. And if CO2 did not cause global warming in the past, then the IPCC has lost its claim that CO2 causes present global warming [12].

Leaf stomata and chemical data prove the historical CO2 level was much higher than derived from ice cores [12]. There is no evidence that the preindustrial CO2 level was 280 ppm as IPCC assumes.

Beck [13] reconstructed CO2 from chemical data show the level reached 440 ppm in 1820 and again in 1945.

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IPCC’s claim that human CO2 produces all the increase in atmospheric CO2 above 280 ppm is invalid. In science, when data contradict a theory, the theory false. The IPCC, however, ignores how its theories contradict data.

Don Bogard On Ed's #5 These comments depend on what species is considered. The rate of radioactive decay for 14C (graph below) is similar to Ed's 14C depletion graph in the ATM (also below). In both, as the relative concentration of 14C decreases, the rate (atoms/ unit time) at which 14C undergoes radioactive decay OR 14C ATM depletion occurs both slow down as the relative concentration of 14C falls. The curve shapes are not identical because radioactive decay follows nuclear properties, whereas ATM 14C depletion is driven by reservoir exchange reactions. But they both have a proportionally to remaining relative concentrations.

ATM CO2 is more complicated because it is continually being removed by reservoir exchange, as well as new human CO2 being added, the latter occurring at a faster rate than removal.

Part of Ed's #6 is false.

Two centuries ago, natural CO2 inflow into the ATM was equal to natural outflow out of the ATM; equilibrium existed and ATM CO2 was relatively constant. A rising increase in ATM CO2 disturbed this equilibrium and caused an increasing CO2 inflow into other reservoirs. (Evidence is strong that human sources, e.g. fossil fuels, caused the ATM increase, but the argument holds whatever the source.) For over a century nature has tried to restore CO2 equilibrium among reservoirs. But, the slowness (delay time) that nature can move CO2 out of the ATM and the continual increase in new CO2 being added to the ATM, prevents equilibrium.

Ed has no evidence that a change in CO2 reservoir equilibrium, not human sources, caused the ATM increase in CO2. What would have disturbed the equilibrium before

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increased ATM CO2 and increasing Temp? And where else could fossil fuel CO2 go but the ATM? Most human CO2 added to the ATM is not currently there because it exchanged into other reservoirs (oceans, plants/soil) and was replaced with natural CO2. IF CO2 exchange with other reservoirs were to slow, the fossil fuel proportion of ATM CO2 would increase. And if exchange were to speed up, fossil fuel proportion of CO2 in the ATM would decrease. Nothing fundamental about Ed's 18%.

Ed's #7 is only partly correct.

If CO2 inflow into the ATM were to be constant, not increasing, the ATM CO2 level would decrease some. This is because concentration equilibrium is not yet established with other CO2 reservoirs (because of exchange delay time) and CO2 equilibrium is not yet established. However, even with a constant human (non-natural) CO2 inflow into the ATM, equilibrium would never be established because the ATM would always be out of equilibrium. "the natural replacement of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere is irrelevant to the level of CO2" Natural CO2 replacement RATE is not irrelevant to ATM CO2 level, as I discuss above. It is what lowers increasing non-natural ATM CO2.

This statement is correct: " the natural replacement of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere is irrelevant to what caused the level of CO2 to increase" Ed's #8 Don't know what would be an "overburden on Nature", but natural CO2 reservoirs are not able to absorb increasing ATM CO2 at its increasing rate, because there are characteristic limits to the rate other reservoirs can uptake ATM CO2.

Ocean buffer capacity for CO2 decreases with increasing Temp and increases with increasing ATM CO2 partial pressure. The latter is currently stronger, and data show ATM CO2 is moving from ATM to Oceans.

Ed's #9.

Human ATM CO2 does not stay there because reservoir exchange moves it to other reservoirs and replaces it with natural. However, as the ATM CO2 outflow increases into other reservoirs, the rate they exchange CO2 back into the ATM also increases.

Some are so desperate to deny a human origin of atmospheric CO2 that they grasp at low improbabilities.

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Ed Berry Some are so desperate to affirm that human CO2 has caused all the increase in atmospheric CO2 that they forget they have not disproved the null hypothesis that human CO2 is innocent until proven guilty.

These believers deny statistics (by Munshi) that prove the correlation between annual human CO2 emissions and annual change in atmospheric CO2 is ZERO, a condition that in all fields of science means there is no cause and effect.

They disregard that human CO2 emissions increased after 2002 and this caused no increase in the rate that atmospheric CO2 increased.

These believers have no working hypothesis that can be tested. The Aztecs had a better working hypothesis because after they decapitated enough heads, it eventually rained as they predicted.

The believers agree that natural CO2 flows freely through the atmosphere as described by the physics model and they thereby affirm the physics model.

Yet they also assume that even one molecule of human CO2 follows different rules and begins an irreversible increase in atmospheric CO2 because some of it sticks in the atmosphere. Look at Don's graph that Richard noted.

Do we really think human CO2 caused the beginning of the rise in atmospheric CO2 some 7000 years ago when human CO2 was less than 0.01 percent of natural CO2 emissions? Yet, come 1750 and the IPCC called all the CO2 in the atmosphere natural.

The only model the believers have is the IPCC Bern model and the Bern model comes apart at its seams. As Richard points out, data by itself is not a theory. Data cannot make a testable prediction without a theory. Presumptions that data make predictions without a testable theory are not science.

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Since the physics model applies to natural CO2 (and is required to support the IPCC theory that constant natural CO2 emissions did not increase the level of atmospheric CO2) then the physics model must also apply to human CO2. The equal treatment of human and natural CO2 shows the ratio of human to natural CO2 in the atmosphere equals the ratio in the inflow, with a few years lag to move close to the balance level set by the inflows.

So far, there is no argument that shows the physics model is wrong and there is no alternative model that is as simple and that can replicate the 14C data.

However, there are arguments against some of the derivable consequences of the physics model.

The most rational argument against the physics model conclusion that natural CO2 rather than human CO2 causes the increase in atmospheric CO2 is that the little amount of human CO2 has so overburdened the natural sinks that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere must increase to cause the outflow of CO2 to equal the inflow of CO2.

That seems to be the believers' only usable argument. Is it testable?

The only way I can think of to test that argument is to use the 14CO2 data after 1970. If human CO2 has overburdened natural sinks then the e-time will increase (as the Bern model assumes).

But the 14CO2 data prove the e-time has remained constant since at least 1970 when the level of atmospheric CO2 was about 315 ppm. That seems to disprove the only argument the believers have to support their claim that human CO2, which is a small fraction of natural CO2 inflow, caused all the increase in atmospheric CO2.

Ed Berry Here is how CO2 flows through the atmosphere: 7

1. Outside reservoirs send CO2 into the atmosphere. That sets CO2 inflow.

2. CO2 will flow out of the atmosphere in proportion to its level (which is its concentration or partial pressure). The physics model hypothesis is Outflow = Level / e-time.

3. The level of CO2 in the atmosphere will change until outflow equals inflow. The level always seeks the level where outflow equals inflow. That level is the balance level. The inflow sets the balance level.

4. E-time is the speed that the level approaches its balance level. E-time a system parameter that quantifies the rate at which outside reservoirs absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.

The above is physics. That is how CO2 flows through the atmosphere.

Does anyone question this physics? … I don’t think so.

This physics shows there is no such thing as “a delay time that prevents equilibrium.”

The level will always move toward equilibrium or its balance level.

Combined with the 14C data, the physics model shows the 14CO2 e-time is 16.5 years. It shows this e-time has remained constant since 1970. It shows the e-time does not vary whether the level is far from its balance level or equal to its balance level.

The physics model is NOT what you refer to as a “computer model.” It is not complex. It is simple and open. It has only one hypothesis with only 3 parameters. It is fundamental. It is testable and provable.

The physics model is the first step in understanding how the inflow of CO2 into the atmosphere sets the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, and that CO2 does not “accumulate” in the atmosphere.

Everyone should understand the physics model. It is the only rational basis to think about how CO2 inflow changes the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Comment: I don’t think anyone disagrees with the description of the physics model above.

I think the only disagreement in these discussions regards these 3 conclusions that derive from the physics model: 1. The ratio of human to natural CO2 in the atmosphere equals the ratio of their inflows, independent of e-time.

2. Therefore, human CO2 inflow increases the level of atmospheric CO2 by about 18 ppm, at which point the outflow of human CO2 will equal its inflow.

3. And, natural CO2 inflow increases the level of atmospheric CO2 by about 392 ppm, at which point the outflow of natural CO2 will equal its inflow.

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