AN ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC MISUNDERSTANDING
Erik Bye
June 30, 2025
The CO2 Coalition is deeply convinced that the present increase in the atmospheric CO2 level is caused by human CO2 emissions, i.e., the anthropogenic part. According to the Coalition, this has been occurring in modern times, defined here as after the pre-industrial era.
This statement about the present CO2 increase was described in this paper:
Human Contribution to Atmospheric CO2: How Human Emissions Are Restoring Vital Atmospheric CO2
https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Human-Contributi on-to-Atmospheric-CO2-digital-compressed.pdf
The standing of The Coalition resulted in an intense debate, where the results of the investigations of Hermann Harde (2023) and Koutsoyiannis (2024) represented the frontiers in the discussion. Harde with 15% anthropogenic CO2 emission and an even lower part as reported by Koutsoyiannis, 4-5%.
I was invited to be a member of the CO2 Coalition in the middle of February 2025. After a short time, I became aware of this questionable article, see above.
Here they conclude in the ABSTRACT with:
«demonstrating conclusively that the modern increase in CO2 is mainly due to anthropogenic emissions»
This statement is quite astonishing (startling?), both concerning the «mainly anthropogenic» and the period. As late as 1992, Tom Segalstad determined the fossil part of the CO2 amount in the atmosphere to be only 4%. And this was stated 140 years later than the start of the pre-industrial period.
As a Coalition member, I sent an internal note on this, stating that the Coalition was wrong about the ratio between natural and human-caused CO2 concentration.
This was not at all accepted as a scientific meaning. I was uncollegial towards the authors, being a member of the Coalition. In addition, they claimed that I promoted «bad Science» when referring to articles published in SCC. This is an international, Norwegian journal with pre-review.
When I addressed that they had completely omitted the natural part of the emission, the answer was that it was irrelevant to include the natural CO2. This part was removed by the sinks, resulting in being outside the flux budget.
When I asked whether their paper met the standard international quality assurance requirements, the answer was no. They had only published the paper on their internal homepage. The quality assurance was that there was a large agreement within the member group on this topic. My answer, that the consensus was no scientific argument, was not commented on.
One way out of this disagreement might be to repeat the experiment of Tom Segalstad. To my big surprise, they did not know about the work of Segalstad, and my description gave no particular interest in a redo of Segalstad's work. This ended with an exclusion of my membership, after 1 1/2 months!
After a month, I received an email from the first author, Ferdinand Engelbeen. He was keen to persuade me that I was wrong. But, the discussion was just a copy of my previous experience with the Coalition, lasting for 15 mils from Ferdinand. He meant that I was confused, as all his other opponents were. His arguments were the same:
- The natural CO2 was irrelevant to include in the CO2 budget
- The sinks removed the natural CO2, whereas the human CO2 part was continuously added to the CO2 level in the atmosphere.
- When I asked how the CO2-flux had changed the n/a-ratio, no change in the system was presented.
- When I suggested a re-do of the experiment of Segalstad, again, the knowledge of this experiment was zero.
- When I sent the relevant paper of Segalstad, Ferdinand refused his work. I could only ask him to discuss this with Segalstad. But, no interest.
A colleague of mine used AI to go through the AR reports of the IPCC to find their conclusions about the ratio n/a. The results were convincing; the total CO2 flux was 700-750 (I changed 70 to 700)GT per year, whereas the human contribution was around 40 to 60 GT, roughly 10% for A4 and AR6. This is in agreement with the value from Harde, 15%, and actually, it is only the Coalition that talks about the irrelevance of the natural part. The removal of natural CO2 through the function of sinks is not mentioned at all.
Then the discussion got a new start. Ed Berry commented on the original paper of the Coalition: CO2 Coalition’s not so Golden Science
https://edberry.com/co2coalition/
And the third author, Dave Burton, commented on this:
https://edberry.com/co2coalition/#comment-112348
I sent the information about the Berry post to Burton, and he was tempted to restart the process.
But this time I started with questions, which should be quite successful.
1. How do you explain the difference in the emission composition from older to modern times?
2. What phenomena have changed from older to modern times?
Answer 1:
What difference in emission composition are you asking about?
3. From mainly natural to mainly human-caused.
Answer 2:
CO2 emissions are still mainly natural. But natural CO2 emissions are exceeded by natural CO2 removals from the air.
So net natural CO2 emissions are negative. Or, to say the same thing a different way, nature (the net sum of all natural sources and sinks) is removing CO2 from the air.
The rate of human CO2 emissions is greater than the rate of nature's net CO2 removal rate, so the amount of CO2 in the air is increasing.
What has changed is that, starting with the Industrial Revolution, mankind has been gradually increasing the amount of CO2 that it produces, mostly (though not entirely) from fossil fuels.
4. How do the sinks discriminate between the two categories?
Answer 3:
They don't.
My comment:
Of course not. It is reassuring that we agree about this.
So, the emission is mainly natural, while the increase is mainly human-caused? This needs evidence, through measurements to convince me. Harde reported 15% anthropogenic, Koutsoyiannis reported 4-5%, and now Berry contributes a minor amount of human-caused CO2. I look forward to seeing your experimental evidence.
Conclusion:
So far, no response to my last comment.
His explanation can’t be valid. We agree that the sinks of Burton naturally enough do not discriminate between natural and human-caused CO2. But then, the removal of only natural CO2 by the sinks is impossible.
This is the ultimate scientific misunderstanding.
Are the emission models of The CO2 Coalition based on this misunderstanding?
This is difficult to «take in».