One of the first things I learned in my first freshman geology class (many decades ago) was that CO2 solubility decreases in ocean water as the temperature rises. Warmer temperatures cause CO2 to migrate from the oceans to the atmosphere and vice-versa.

This was seen in the Vostok ice cores as well. CO2 levels track ocean temperatures, phase shifted by a few hundred years.

This new study is another angle confirming what has been known and understood for generations. However, the claim in the SA article "The finding adds yet more weight to the contention that greenhouse gases drive climate change" is not supported by the evidence. Nothing in their study makes any attempt to differentiate between cause and effect. In effect, the SA writer is assuming the cart is pulling the horse, without any supporting evidence.

Looks like more AGW junk journalism ....

I guess it all depends on what you read....
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296719,00.html

The main problem I see with this study is that the original stable isotope composition has been modified due to fluid-rock interactions during burial. These fossils, given their pre-Cretaceous age, have indeed been buried because no unaltered marine sediments are older than Jurassic. Everything older has been either obducted or subducted. The isotopic composition of the meteoric waters can and will change during these tectonic processes as does the temperature of the waters.

Therefore, paleotemperatures as well as paleo carbon dioxide concentrations are suspect unless the above processes are taken into account. There are other problems, but I'll save them for later, if necessary.

This seems to say, related to today's environment, that man really does not have that great of an impact on global warming via CO2 emissions! There weren't many SUVs and very little industrialization 300-400 million years ago. So man could not have created enough CO2 back then and possibly even 55 million years ago to cause the higher tropical ocean temperatures and the sudden shift from a cool to an extremely hot climate. So what caused the increase in CO2 if man wasn't there?

I forgot to add another thought. If the climate got hot back then and there is a definite link between higher CO2 and higher tropical ocean temperatures and resultant global warming, and man and SUVs were not around 300-500 million years ago to cause this , then what guarantee do we have that if we do all this stuff to reduce global warming now, that it will really work? We need to find out what caused the increase in CO2 millions of years ago, so we can prevent it from ever happening again!

Also, what if we all agree with AGW alarmists and agree to live in caves and walk everywhere, shouldn't we have a backup plan in case of global cooling? What can we do to make sure we never enter an ice age? What if we were to start going into an ice age, would we have to start driving SUVs again in order to heat up the planet?

Humans rule this planet!

As the oceans warm, they release CO2 which results in even more warming and more CO2 release.

This is the receipt for runaway global warming and a dreaded thermal extinction event...

Before humans, it was usually just slight periodic variations in the suns orbit that warmed and cooled the planet and oceans. Thereby providing just a little bit of additional CO2 releases and warming before plant growth caught up and gobbled up all that nasty extra CO2. It was only every 50 million years or so that things got out of hand and a thermal extinction event would occur.

But oh no, now that us humans are in charge, we have been cutting back plant growth and emitting even more CO2 and things could go terrible wrong if the oceans were to start releasing their charge.

Fortunately, the earth is large and very slow to change and we have time to take the necessary actions.

On the other hand, maybe I am overly optimistic and this is really just a planet of apes. :>(

Patrick,

It's just as said in several of the previous posts, when you have a sample interval of 1,000,000 years or more, how can you discern a 800 year lag? For that matter, how can you discern anything at all?

Mary,

I think that the reasoning of your last post is flawed. Human beings have been altering the climate for probably less than 10,000 years. lareg scale atmospheric modification has been going on for less than 250 years. In this tiny speck of time we have increased CO2 concentration by more than %50. I'm not saying that this is necsessariyl bad. It is, however, a much faster rate of change than normal, so we may have to dealwith some dynamics fromthe sheer rate of change. I don't know; we'll just have to wait and see.

Guys,

I have to correct somethignIsaid in my last post. I statedthat we have increased CO2 more than 50% from pre-industrial levels. In fact, pre-indistrial levelswere apout 280 ppm, while current levels are about 380 ppm, which is only about a 35.7% increase. Sorry.

Mary ,

Just like the tree cover over on your land which keeps your home cooler than the local suburban centre, human activity over 8000 years before industrialisation has really been the cause of most global climate change.
Deforestation over large tracts of land world wide for 8000 years has led to desertification disrupting rainfall patterns washing away soils. The ongoing human activity that has churned up remaining soil for agriculture has also released billions of tonnes of co2 into an overburdened atmosphere.
While this has occured the changes made on land are preventing the natural storage of co2. Peat coals oils and all fossil fuels stopped forming in the human time frame. The birth of civilisation interupted nature.

Draining swamps and clearing 70 % of the worlds ancient forests has ruined the carbon sinks. Humans have exploited land and have permanently disabled nature�s ability to sequester co2 emissions from volcanic activity well before we began burning nature�s stores of safely sequestered fossil fuels

The current obsession with cutting co2 emissions fails to recognise that the planet can no longer deal with its own co2 much less our contribution Therefore any attempt to reduce emissions now will have little effect unless the swamps and forests are re-established overnight while industry is abandoned late this afternoon.

We can simplify AGW to an acceleration after the fact, post industrialization has had a measurable effect, but we cannot ignore what occurred for 8000 years before the SUV.

Hansen's Second Law of Climate Dynamics: If the present fails to get warmer, the past MUST become colder. 'Conservation of trends' is a fundamental principle.

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2049#more-2049

I agree with Paul. Also, we should stop spending time, money and efforts in things like Iraq and start concentrating in this problem, that sometimes seems to be a lost cause..

Thanks,

fuser
www.globalwarmingnow.com

Ah, sorry Mary, my mistake, you did say 300-400 million years ago,I did not read it, but it does change a few things.

Nevertheless volcanic eruptions on a much greater scale than today would have pushed the atmospheric co2 content up high enough to tip the balance in a simular way that has now occurred because of SUVs and other human activity.

Climate change would still have caused droughts millions of years ago and in the absence of Arsonists lightning strikes would have still burnt the forests while there was no fire brigade to get control/ then rising seas would inundated swamps effectively ruining sinks and the ability nature had to sequester co2.

The warming seas would not have absorbed co2 but actually emitted greater volumes so with or without human activity co2 could still have caused an acceleration of GW.

These days though the small amount of time that has past between the last major ice age and this era of accelerated warming has occurred in only 12000 years, which must be alarming. After all an ice age always follows an era of abrupt warming and the typical warming period between ice ages should be at least 175000 years.

What link?
The article jumps a conclusion that cannot be justified by any scientific means. All they can prove (maybe) is CO2 was high during that time. (again a relative term) Unless they showed that the CO2 rose before the temperature rose, they actually prove that CO2 follows temperature not the other way around.
The peer reviewers on this should be admonished for their sloppy work. However it can be justified if you want to be published because it’s about Global Warming and CO2.
Let's see the possible reasons for the conclusions
1. Ego- fame in the media, notoriety, or tenure
2. Money- personal or more funding (The gravy train has arrived as long as the story ends with. "....as related to Global warming and CO2)
3. Money and ego- see above for reasons.

and the insanity continues

Patrick Henry .... as another geologist on this blog I'm surprised that you had to learn about CO2 solubility in class. Warm beer & coke gave me the heads up on that one.

I did find some info on the satellite ice measuring & will try to organize it & give to Brett for posting this weekend. In my search I discovered there was a Norwegian ice breaker trying to get to the pole this summer but never made it & had to high tail it out of the Arctic to avoid getting frozen in. Kind of interesting since Andrew sez the ice is all disappearing ... yet it is thick enough to stop an ice breaker!!

Be good,
Rick.

I WENT TO THE STORE THE OTHER DAY AND REALIZED THAT ASPHALT PAVEMENT IS MUCH HOTTER IN THE SUN THEN CONCRETE
I BELIEVE ALL ASPHALT SHOULD BE RIPPED UP AND ALL CONCRETE BE PUT IN ITS PLACE THAT ALONE SHOULD LOWER THE EARTHS TEMPERATURE BY 10 DEGREES WITHIN 1 YEAR.

Could someone help me out, please (and believe me, I need help)? If the climate's instability is truly due mostly to impact from humans, then isn't it reasonable to think that the only way to bring climate to a normal state would be for humans' impact to completely cease? Forget changing lightbulbs or driving a hybrid vehicle. We need to stop -- as in, immediately -- all forms of harmful carbon emissions. This isn't about reaching goals of, say, reducing carbon emissions by 80% over the next generation (Al Gore's recommendation) or perhaps by 50% by 2030. All harmful carbon emissions (i.e., automobiles, power plants, Barbie jeeps, meat-eating, high school football games, World Series, family vacations, business meetings (yes!), church picnics, college educations, Academy Awards, Christmas plays, wars in Iraq, manufacturing of bicycles or solar panels, etc.)need to come to a complete halt by, oh, September 30.

Just asking. Please, carry on.

Using the same brilliant logic -

Lighting is almost always associated with clouds. Obviously lightning causes clouds.

Pregnancy is almost always associated with sex. Obviously pregnancy causes sex.

Taxes normally get raised when a Democrat is in the White House. Obviously taxes cause Democrats.

Global warming papers increase when AGW research funding gets increased. Obviously research funding is causing global warming.

I wonder if Came and Eiler really mean that GHG's during the Silurian CAUSED the oceans to become warmer. Henry's Law explains why CO2 and CH4 rise and fall with oceans temps with oceans temps being the driver.

I think they will have a very tough time explaining how GHG's are reduced to then CAUSE the oceans to cool which will then in turn allow more GHG's to be sequestered in the seas. Henry's Law handles that one quite well as well with temperature again being the driver.

AGW cannot survive for too much longer and curiously enough it seems the abundance of funding will help it's downfall. The more BS studies like this one that get attention, the more often people will say "Hey, wait a minute . . ."

Andrew,

Still awaiting a, just one, "multiple peer reviewed", heck I don't even care if it is peer reviewed, just show me ONE study that shows how and how much CO2 has contributed to the ONE degree increase the Earth has experienced since the end of the LIA. I will review it myself.

Just read your response to an earlier thread.

You have no clue what you are talking about in this matter. Once you get to an altitude where water vapor turns to ice crystals it is really damn cold up there. We can see just how much CO2 and CH4 is working overtime up there. Having clouds that are not ice crystals in such cold environments shows how much energy is stored in clouds, water vapor.

Having temperatures drop so fast as altitude gains and humidity declines also shows how little the other GHG's affect their environment. Air pressure is only 30% at 30,000 ft as compared to sea level. That means that there is only 30% of CO2 as compared to sea level.

Just above this is the STRATOSPHERE where the primary source of heating is OZONE. Not CO2 or CH4. You are grasping at very thin air here.

Is this all foreign to you? Having such confidence in false statements shows how little you know on the subject and how much you are open to ridicule.

Regards,

Steve

Thank you all for making the obvious point: of course warmer temperatures will lead to more atmospheric CO2. No one disputes this and there is nothing new here.

However, this cause and effect is precisely the opposite of that claimed in the AGW theory. There is nothing here which can be claimed as evidence of the AGW theory.

Ted - I've given up all hope for AGW 'peer-review'.

As the oceans warm, they release CO2 which results in even more warming and more CO2 release.

Andrew,

So this feedback loop spirals out of control and the earth becomes like Venus? Scary stuff. Seems to happen about once every 60,000 years.

This paper showed that higher CO2 concentrations are associated with higher temperatures. Reading anything further into it is a disservice to science, which unfortunately is the norm these days.

Steve,

I am not impressed with 4th grader comments.

Anyhow, wait no longer, here are the papers.

Derwent, R., 1990: Trace Gases and Their Relative Contribution to the Greenhouse Effect. Report AERE- R13716, Atomic Energy Research
Establishment, Harwell, Oxon, UK. 95 pp.

Hegerl, G.C., et al., 1996: Detecting greenhouse-gas-induced climate change with an optimal fi ngerprint method. J. Clim., 9, 2281-2306.

Hansen, J., et al., 1984: Climate sensitivity: Analysis of feedback mechanisms. In: Climate Processes and Climate Sensitivity [Hansen, J.E., and T. Takahashi (eds.)]. Geophysical Monograph 29, American Geophysical Union, Washington, DC, pp. 130-163.

Lorenz, E.N., 1975: The physical bases of climate and climate modelling. In: Climate Predictability. GARP Publication Series 16, World
Meteorological Association, Geneva, pp. 132-136.

Madden, R.A., and V. Ramanathan, 1980: Detecting climate change due to increasing carbon dioxide. Science, 209, 763-768.

Schlesinger, M.E., and J.F.B. Mitchell, 1987: Climate model simulations of the equilibrium climatic response to increased carbon-dioxide. Rev. Geophys., 25, 760?798.

Wigley, T.M.L., and S.C.B. Raper, 1990: Natural variability of the climate system and detection of the greenhouse effect. Nature, 344, 324-327.

Bryson, R.A., and G.J. Dittberner, 1976: A non-equilibrium model of hemispheric mean surface temperature. J. Atmos. Sci., 33, 2094?2106.

Ummmm, guys... I was being facetious.

The Nature paper is behind a subscription wall, but the abstract, the supplementary material and the figures can be viewed for free.

Recall Paul's first comment:

"The main problem I see with this study is that the original stable isotope composition has been modified due to fluid-rock interactions during burial. These fossils, given their pre-Cretaceous age, have indeed been buried because no unaltered marine sediments are older than Jurassic. Everything older has been either obducted or subducted. The isotopic composition of the meteoric waters can and will change during these tectonic processes as does the temperature of the waters.

"Therefore, paleotemperatures as well as paleo carbon dioxide concentrations are suspect unless the above processes are taken into account. There are other problems, but I'll save them for later, if necessary."

Paul says, IOW, the authors and the Nature peer review process missed an issue which must be, in a paleogeochemistry context, the COMPLETE BLEEDIN' OBVIOUS. But did they? Looking at page three of the supplementary material, it's clear that they took it into account rather carefully.

So, that leaves us with a choice:

Was Paul a) just making something up or b) lying? You be the judge.

Derwent, R., 1990: Trace Gases and Their Relative Contribution to the Greenhouse Effect. Report AERE- R13716, Atomic Energy Research
Establishment, Harwell, Oxon, UK. 95 pp.

Horrible attempt at lying Andrew. This one is about overuse of Hydrogen as a source of energy and how Hydrogen leaks could cause Ozone depletion. I'm beginning to wonder what a "Nuclear Engineer" does and how much education is takes to become one.

Hegerl, G.C., et al., 1996: Detecting greenhouse-gas-induced climate change with an optimal fi ngerprint method. J. Clim., 9, 2281-2306.

Nuclear Engineer huh? Geez. This one is based on models, and says that there is only a 5% chance natural cause