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117 comments on Dr Richard Pike: on proved reserves, peak oil and carbon dioxide
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117 comments on Dr Richard Pike: on proved reserves, peak oil and carbon dioxide
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Chris - as you are probably already aware the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) set in warm mode was responsible for a significant amount of the increase in global average surface temperature experienced in the period 1980 to 1998. And now that the PDO has switched to its cool mode we have experienced steady lowering of the global average surface temperature since 1998.
The computer generated graphic below is from NOAA showing the global sea surface temperature anomaly on 19 June this year. The PDO is manifest as the large area of "cooler" ocean water off the W coast of N America.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/climo&hot.html
There are two principal ways in which the oceans pump CO2 out of the atmosphere. The first is the solution pump - CO2 being dissolved in sea water and "sequestered" by ocean currents. And the second more secure way of pumping down CO2 is the biological pump whereby algae, foraminifera et al that grow on CO2, die, sink to the ocean floor and become a calcareous mudrock - sequestering the CO2 for rather a long time.
Now I'm aware that during the 20th century, scientists like Lovelock grew concerned about the creation of a warm surface layer of water that had become saturated in CO2, had become acidised, and was preventing both the solution and biological pumps from working. But now, out of the blue we suddenly have all this cool water appearing, especially in the NW Pacific. Are you able to update us on how the CO2 concentrations in this "new" cool surface water differs form the old - and where to hell did all that old CO2 saturated, warm water go to?
These pumps seem to have a rate function associated with them. So I am surprised by the claim that "the CO2" problem is more to do with URR than flow rates. If we burned all the remaining oil tomorrow - would that not cause a greater problem than burning it slowly over a thousand years?
On oil reserves, the starting point for any self respecting geochemist is to map oil prone source rocks in the sub-surface and to combine this with basin modeling to come up with a number for the amount of oil generated in any basin. The figure for oil generated is normally huge relative to the actual reserves because huge amounts of the oil generated escape to surface where it is broken down by bacteria to produce CO2 and CH4. Much of the oil produced stays in the impermeable source rocks (never to be recovered), much of it remains stranded as stringers in carrier beds, a lot of it is stranded as small un-economic pools and as a general rule only a small percentage of it is trapped in larger structures that we discover and call oil fields.
Choosing a definition of reserves in this spectrum of variability is near impossible. The lower boundary has to be eroei, somewhere significantly higher than 1. Those who want to claim high reserves figures for planet Earth should form and oil company and go drill.
By way of passing example. One of my favorite oil cos is Tullow oil. Currently appraising a giant filed discovery offshore Ghana (the Jubliee field), but also has good discoveries in Tanzania. Now in Tanzania they need a 2P reserves threshold of 400 mmb for commerciality. That is a prety high figure for onshore oil - but they need to build a 1300 km pipeline to export the oil. How much of this does Dr Pike understand?
Euan,
Why don't you pose that question to Dr. Gavin Schmidt over at RealClimate.org
He just put up a post titled Ocean heat content revisions
Filed under:
* Oceans
* Climate modelling
* Climate Science
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/06/ocean-heat-content...
Climate change denialists, like creationists and flat-earthers, don't like to speak to scientists, they get all muddled.
I'm sure Euan will be concerned to learn that he is still not a 'real' scientist, in spite of his Doctorate! :-)
He's only a geologist. That is, knows as much about climate change as me.
For some reason, climate change denialists who are actually scientists of some description seem to be concentrated in the fields of geology and electrical engineering. And the geologists usually turn to work for or have worked for some fossil fuel companies - thus having a financial interest in denying climate change.
Now, a little google on him tells us,
"he returned to Aberdeen in 1991 where he set up a geochemical analysis and consulting firm serving the international oil industry."
Woo, what a surprise. Someone who's made money helping companies find more fossil fuels which when burned cause climate change... tells us that burning more fossil fuels won't cause climate change. Amazing!
So you want to switch your definition of what a scientist is now, and restrict it by discipline?
Your original post was clearly indicating that you felt those who had reservations were not able to understand science of any sort.
You then try to impugn their integrity because of past association with industries of which you disapprove.
Presumably proceeding in your recommended ad hominem fashion we should entirely discount the statements of the very many scientists who are stake-holders in the idea of global warming, as their livelihoods and grants depend on it?
I would suggest that it is more appropriate to deal with the arguments as presented rather than indulging in somewhat uncharitable speculation as to motivation, or dubious attempts to discredit criticisms on the grounds that they are not by scientists, according to your definitions of course.
Dave a lot of scientists are restricted by their discipline. You know, myopic. Maybe we should call out for a generalist
I have been searching for a wise generalist people I heard about, but am having trouble locating that tiny hill tribe, so I guess the best I can do is that animal book . Sorry!
Oh damn Dave, that faint last hope for mankind, that wise generalist people, I am afraid they ran into a cannibal tribe that specializes in supplying Solyent Green for the local market. Bugger!
My goal in life is to become somewhat of a Renaissance man so I am hoping to join the tribe of those that take the long and overall view of things. My view with climate change is you are not going to get people to stop burning co2 because their lives depend on it, believe it or not most of the people today are indirectly biomass from fossil fuels. Climate change is certainly happening and is going to create profound problems for humanity but ultimately we cannot deviate from that path unless we make profound changes to the way we live and have society set up. Jeff Vail is my favorite wise generalist and his rhizome network idea's are brilliant.
Sure, why not?
Would I ask a geologist about the chances of smoking causing lung cancer? Would I ask an oncologist about peak oil?
It's not that I disapprove of the fossil fuel industry, it's just that someone involved in any particular industry has a financial incentive to play down its dangers. So a medical doctor will probably tell you iatrogenic illnesses are not a problem, a tobacco shop owner will tell you smoking isn't that bad, a fast food franchiser will tell you that their food is nutritious, and an oil industry person will tell you there's no such thing as human-caused climate change.
The thing is that their grants don't depend on proving global warming, just investigating the climate and our interactions with it. If someone though they'd discovered some interesting new aspect to the carbon cycle which meant that we could safely dump another 1,000Gt of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere, we can be sure they'd get funding for the study.
They've no financial stake in any particular conclusion, just in the study itself. If anything, this encourages doubt about the consensus, since if you propose a study which will just confirm what we already know, that's harder to get past the grants committee than one which will challenge what we know, or which will open up some new field.
The thing is that his arguments were addressed. We pointed him to a RealClimate.org article which talked about the very things he was bringing up, recent ocean temperature trends.
He never responded to that. He just said, "interesting" and then went on to talk about something else. Which is standard operating procedure for a denialist, whether it be climate change, tobacco deaths, peak oil, big bang theory, or whatever they're denying.
Any person with competence in scientific method to the extent of warranting the title scientist should be able to transfer that competence to just about any other field, subject to their time and willingness to study the relevant data. Sure, some fields such as immunology or neuro involve a seriously oppressive level of study but this doesn't look to be one of those.
In my experience there is already often huge incompetence of scientists within their own fields anyway!
In which case there was no need for more.
Going on about real or imaginary bias ad hominem points can never, emphasis, never resolve scientific/factual questions. It is explicitly against tod guidelines. Don't do it. Full stop.
Any person with competence in scientific method to the extent of warranting the title scientist
There is no official body that awards the title "scientist". Any bodies that do award titles do so for specific fields, and there is no requirement for competence in other fields. There is no "should".
Even if some people have the mental capacity to study a field effectively, that does not mean that they can cross disciplines effectively. While some scientists have brought valuable fresh insight from different fields, a lot have also made complete fools of themselves. Stephen Hawking is a good example, he may be a bloody smart cosmologist but he talks BS about climate.
In an ideal world, that is fine if all the people presenting the arguments are unbiased. But if you treat "evidence" from industry lobbyists with equal weight then you are being incredibly naive. In the real world, you have to consider the credibility of the source.
The best way to resolve scientific questions is by scientists qualified in that field, subject to peer review (i.e peers in that field). Which is why I go by the consensus work of climate scientists, and not by individuals outside the field, however many degrees they have.
I never said there was!
True, I was using the word as shorthand for "will usually in practice".
He's actually a bad example. He himself did a good job of admitting he is not a genius, just a smart writer. I'm thinking rather about scientific genius, the qualities for which are largely field-independent (e.g. Linus Pauling's superb papers about vitamin C).
I have extensive experience of medical research in which corruption is very much alive. And yet even the most abysmally-deceitful papers almost never stoop to falsifying their data. You just have to go through them with a fine comb to clean out the omissions and methodolical tricks (e.g. just had a letter from uk Chief Dental Officer in which he rests his case on the SCENIHR report. Oh, it just "forgets" to even mention the 26 studies showing major benefits from dental amalgam removal.) The point is that my demonstration of the dental officer's crapness does not depend in any way on notions of corruption, bias etc.
Again, my experience in the medical and psychological fields is that qualifications and peer-review can often exclude all the competent heretics and give voice only to establishment creeps - the perverted spirit of Lysenkoism is very much alive right now in the English-speaking world in many fields.
I agree with the next comment down by DaveMart. There are no reliable shortcuts around the facts and reasonings.
Since you apparently wish to reserve the right to have an opinion, or at least to state it, on climate change to expert opinion, would you please present your qualifications in climatology to the forum?
Actually, you are revealing a profound lack of understanding for the scientific method, or at least a lack of sympathy for it.
It matters to science qua science not in the least whether the proponent of a viewpoint is a paleo climatologist or a pig farmer, what counts is the argument, not the person.
Of course, not every opinion will attract much attention, and academic qualifications are a way of showing that having a look at it might be worthwhile.
You are making an essentially political argument, which seeks to discredit the proponent of a viewpoint as being rather less trouble than making an actual argument.
As to not responding, all you did was point towards some sort of site which is your, presumably unqualified, opinion, you felt might somewhere or the other deal with the specifics he mentioned.
Your arguments are those of authority, not science. Everyone would still be Catholic if they were finally persuasive.
This argument is really misguided. Do you really consult a pig farmer about climate? It's an ideal vision of science which can't be implemented in practice, because people have to perform science, and people are flawed. People are not all unbiased and competent. The great attribute of science as practiced is that it attempts to compensate for the flaws in people. The scientific process reaches a consensus that represents the best knowledge.
While it is true that valid scientific ideas may come from unqualified people, and that the opinion of a qualified scientist however eminent cannot be taken as a sole authority, it is far more likely that the qualified guy is closer to the truth. If the pig farmer engages in the scientific process, then effectively he becomes a qualified scientist.
Even if I get opinions from different people, how do I assess their submission? To study a field, I have to read the work of scientists. So then whose work do I follow? The Pig Farmers textbook or the Climate Scientists textbook? If I become sufficiently versed in the subject, then effectively I have become a qualified scientist. So I may as well have asked the qualified scientist in the first place.
In practice the consensus body of scientific evidence is the authority, but it still requires a qualified scientist to interpret it. However you look at it, you have to consider the consensus in the field, and rely on the opinion of scientists working in that field.
The consensus may not be perfect, nor even correct, but it is the best answer that anyone can know. That is the whole point of the scientific process.
Actually, the consensus report, the IPCC report, was requested by governments. It is not always the case that this sort of bringing together of data and models happens so formally. Much more often arguments carry on for years and years in the liturature.
Fortunately, the atmospheric science community has some experience in forming solid consensus positions to assist policy makers. Current success in addressing ozone depletion shows how effective an effort can be made. I would say the the Peace Prize received by the IPCC is deserved just for that model of knowledge alone.
Chris
If we want to talk about consensus, it is now the consensus of the US government that,
It must be a bit embarrassing to be more "conservative" and "sceptical" than Dubya's administration... Being a "climate sceptic" when the US government isn't would be sort of like saying today, "look, they might still find WMD in Iraq... really."
You appear to entirely mistake the argument.
The critique was on the grounds of expertise - from someone who it appears has no expertise.
I have no problem with the consensus on climate change.
I do have an issue with mindless sui generis condemnation of any comment on its scope in a manner which if widely accepted would lead to an accepted 'faith', deviations from which would be regarded as heretical.
As soon as someone uses terms such as ' climate change deniers' they have switched the grounds to a religious or philosophical climate entirely removed from the scientific enquiry they purport to support.
Political exclusion has nothing to do with scientific examination and is inimical to its spirit.
And in that concept lies the root of a vast amount of corruption, from "professors" who know that they can get away with all manner of massive lies because people are content to rest their faith on that assumption. Like the Chief Dental Officer abovementioned. And the proven criminal liar Prof H Frank Woods, head of the hugely important uk Committee on Toxicity (no, don't worry, he won't have the nerve to sue).
I recently attended a professor's lecture on climate change, to see for myself the strength of the case (in outline at least). I found it impressively persuasive. That 1998 was the hottest-ever year was noted along the way.
Then I come here and see someone cherry-picking that 1998 for his "trendline" (not heard of moving averages?), and the message that comes across is the weakness of his case against agw.
I attended the professor's lecture because he was a professor of climatology. But I found his case persuasive only because I examined it.
See, here's part of my problem. Adequate data exists to support any and all sides int this debate. Good hard data, not junk like cherry-picking the date. The thing with earth-studies is that regardless of what you are doing, you need to pick the beginning point. yes, we are warmer than the little ice age, but what about the holocene maximum? All the record temperatures that we hear of are based on the "instrument record" which is pretty short.
In addition to the abundance of contradictory data and the difficulties inherent in the study, we have the inadequacies of the "models". Which are vast. I have some slight difficulties in taking seriously a "climate model" regardless of how well it hindcasts 100 years that treats the sun as a fixed output lightbulb and the earth as a ball without vegetation or animal life, that take a timestep of 1 year and have a surface resolution large enough to simply miss mount everest, that take things like "clouds" as poorly understood so primarily neglected. The ability of a model that demonstrably crude to hindcast says very little about its ability to forecast.
Bad science is not the sole province of industry, it is just as frequently committed by governments with agendas.
So, we come back to the things we "know" the things that REALLY meet the scientific criteria, specifically repeatability.
Co2 is a radiatively active gas. It absorbs certain frequencies of light. At a certain concentration it absorbs all light in that band that hits it. As concentration increases above that level, the band gets very slightly wider. This we know. It has been proven and no spectrometer on the planet would work were it not so.
Humanity has consumed a vast quantity of hydrocarbon fuel and deforested a vast area of land. over the same period, the co2 concentration has risen. in fact, the total quantity of co2 in the atmosphere has increased by a strikingly similar number to the co2 we have emitted. This could in theory be coincidence, but it's doubtful on its face.
It is reasonable to suggest based on those 2 things that the temperature of the planet will increase. How much, where, and how gracefully.... well, that's a harder question.
If you are interested in the sceptics science, this is a great site. it's fully documented and verifiable.
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/
Kiashu, I would stress that in his post Euan is asking questions, showing doubts, trying to update his knowledge.
I believe that is much more scientific than believing the press. Climate change is not an easy problem, not even one the IPCC can "solve".
But to make a reasonable risk management of the issue, questions and doubts have to be more than welcome (from any field, and especially from geology). Otherwise, statements of the sort "the debate is over", etc, bring us closer to politics and far away from science and falsification.
This is a bit of a cheap shot and not helpful in my opinion. Yes Euan has worked in the oil industry in the past but I don't believe he has any insitutional bias because of this. Little more than a year ago he posted this without much sign of climate change skepticism.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2260
Thanks for the link. Looking at the article, we see,
Sure, he said the world was warming, but didn't address the cause. After all, if it's not us humans, then there's nothing we can do about it, right? Just keep on burning all those fossil fuels, doesn't matter!
So, all geologists working in the Awl patch, leave their brains in the car park when they go to work do they?
And since we are 'only geologists' Care to tell us your particular specialisation in atmospheric physics or paleo climatology or your science discipline?
AGW is more of a hysterical religion and not a scientific discipline.
These same hysterics were telling us we would die under miles of Ice back in the 1970's. (see below)
GW is well known in 'only geologists' circles. It happened before, it will happen again as will Global Cooling.
Maybe should read up on paleoclimatology. Or get out more (hint : look for red rocks...)
As mentioned above - Global cooling:
The continued rapid cooling of the earth since WWII is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialisation, mechanisation, urbanisation and exploding population."
- Reid Bryson, "Global Ecology; Readings towards a rational strategy for Man", 1971
The rapid cooling of the earth since World War II is also in accord with the increased air pollution associated with industrialization, and an exploding population.
- Reid Bryson, "Environmental Roulette", 1971
An increase by only a factor of 4 in the global aerosol background concentration may be sufficient to reduce the surface temperature by as much as 3.5 deg. K. If sustained over a period of several years, such a temperature decrease over the whole globe is believed to be sufficient to trigger an ice age. - S.I Rasool and S.H. Schneider
Science, v173, p138, 9/7/1971.
"This [cooling] trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century"
- Peter Gwynne, Newsweek 1976
"This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000."
- Lowell Ponte "The Cooling", 1976
So what is it? Warming or Cooling?
As a species we simply have not been around long enough to do trend analysis.
Bit of an urban myth, that cooling idea in the 70s.
I can't remember where I read this, probably RealClimate, but someone counted the climate papers in the 70s that were 'warmers' and 'coolers'. Even then the warmers were the great majority.
My anecdotal memory was that I was convinced by the warming arguement in the mid-70s and never took cooling seriously.
The irony is that because the climate obviously wasn't getting cooler as expected was the reason the whole international effort kicked off to study the climate, eventually leading to the current IPCC.
I dunno. I just note that whenever someone says, "hey look, there's this scientist who doesn't believe in climate change, or who believes humans aren't responsible for it!" a significant part of the time it turns out to be a geologist or electricial engineer. I dunno why.
I don't think you have to be a specialist in a particular area to know about it, but you do have to be a specialist in that area to do a strong critique of it.
For example, if you as a geologist were to write a paper for us here at TOD about the sort of geological formations we find oil in, I wouldn't venture to criticise it. But once you'd written and I'd read it, I'd know something more about it.
By which reasoning, we can say nothing about peak fossil fuels. After all, that's all about trend analysis of oil field production, yeah?
Really?
FMagyar, thanks for the link, interesting stuff. I'm intrigued by the reference to volcanos and that the ocean heat record is now deemed to be more clearly tied to them. I'm afraid I just can't see the connection in the data presented by Domingues
* Climate modeling
This is similar to climate models, where these models predict global cooling following large volcanic eruptions that penetrate the stratosphere - linked to the theory that SO2 aerosols in the stratosphere should lead to cooling of the lower troposphere. Now there is evidence that SO2 aerosols do lead to warming in the stratosphere. But I'm afraid I just can't see any evidence in the actual data to suggest cooling of the lower troposphere associated with these large volcanic eruptions. This is particularly evident for Krakatau. The surface temperature record doesn't flinch - surprising I know.
Euan,
First, my cards on the table face up, I don't pretend to have any expertise in matters relating to climate science. However I did make my suggestion to post your question to Gavin at realclimate.org in a sincere manner. BTW I did check your bio and noted your Phd. I assumed that since you had a background in science you would be more inclined to accept a scientific explanation from an expert in that specific field. I myself have posted questions that have been answered by Gavin and others at RealClimate, they have been quite patient with my sometimes rather simple questions.
Just as a general aside, not in any way intended as a personal remark on anyone here. I am often fascinated that the smartest people sometimes seem to forget that there are others out there who are dedicating their brainpower and years of research to answer the very questions that they sometimes dismiss out of hand.
This is a point that I have brought up on other science based blogs that I frequent. I beleive that it would be most presumtous of me to question out of hand someone else's expertise. None of us has the time or the resources to become an expert in all the subjects that are and will be impacting us for a long time to come. At some point we are all going to have to defer to another's expertise and try our best make judgement based on what is considered consensus in a particular discipline.
I would certainly rate more highly any point that you might make about peak oil and how it is supported by the geological sciences than if a climate scientist were to say he doesn't really see any significant trend in the data and therefore concludes that we don't have to worry about this issue.
BTW, I understand that you agree that the underlying trend is that AGW is real.
PDO variance is due to ENSO,NPI and reemergence mechanism over pacific ocean,NPI is a short term unpredictable oscillation,ENSO can be predicted up to some months thus no one knows if PDO has switched to prolonged cool mode, simply a strong la nina event has now favoured PDO-.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/gilbert.p.compo/Newmanetal2003.pdf
http://shadow.eas.gatech.edu/%7Ekcobb/seminar/schneider&cornuelle05.pdf
"Several recent studies have used statistical analyses to reconstruct the annually averaged PDO and determine the processes that underlie its dynamics. Newman et al. (2003b) found that for annual average anomalies (July-June) the PDO is well modeled as the sum of atmospheric forcing represented by white noise, forcing due to ENSO, and memory of SST anomalies in the previous year. The latter results in part from the “reemergence mechanism”, where ocean
temperature anomalies created in winter are sequestered below the mixed layer in summer and then re-entrained into the mixed layer in the following fall and winter (Alexander and Deser 1995, Alexander et al. 1999, Deser et al. 2003). Schneider and Cornuelle (2005) found that the
annually averaged PDO could be reconstructed based on a first-order autoregressive model and forcing associated with variability in the Aleutian Low (essentially internal atmospheric noise), ENSO and wind-driven Rossby waves in the North Pacific Ocean. On interannual time scales,
ENSO and the Aleutian Low were about equally important at determining the PDO while on decadal timescales, all three processes, including ocean dynamics, were of equal importance."
Thus PDO cannot be responsible for global temperature increase observed since 1975, it's an ENSO consequence and ENSO affect global temperature but mostly over shorter time scales.
Global temperature are still rising, obviously there are short term fluctuation due to ENSO, 1997-1998 spike has been favored by strong elnino and anomaly was much above 1975-2007 linear trend, then 1999-2000 la nina cooled the world below 1975-2007 linear trend. A prevalence of elnino again favored temperature above linear trend between 2002 and 2005 and now again we are below linear trend due to strong la nina condition, this doesn't means that underlying trend has stopped!
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/trend2.jpg
My thinking behind that comment was thus: Elevated CO2 concentrations are bad and the time scale over which they are bad is greater than the plus or minus a couple of decades or a half giga tonne either way that the flow rate degree of freedom covers. If we can agree that pretty much all oil that will ever be extracted will have been extracted within the next 50 years then that's a good enough resolution for climate change. What matters is how much in the 50 years, not how the flow rate is distributed within the next half century.
From: Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?
This chart in Hansen's recent paper shows how the forcing today (black curve) will eventually produce 2 degrees further warming. The red horizontal lines are my annotation. Historically the forcing and temperature have been closely correlated, the current deviation is caused by the (relativity) slow response.
This warming comes from slower processes that haven't equilibrated yet, 0.6C from ocean thermal inertia and 1.4C from surface albedo change associated with ice cover and vegetation. The bulk of the temperature change associated with a change in forcing takes many decades to hundreds of years with the full response even a thousand years.
It's a great paper, flick to page 4 for slow feedbacks and page 5 for the chart and discussion on time scales. To quote:
Chris, I've had this discussion with you before and I'm afraid we just don't seem to be on the same page.
Burning FF and cement production adds 6.3±0.3 Gt C to the atmosphere per year
The Atmosphere contains 760 Gt C
The atmosphere accumulates 3.3±0.2 Gt C per year (from FF and cement?)
Air-sea exchange is 90Gt C per year.
Houghton, Global Warming, p 30.
So what you seem to be saying is that varying the rate of FF and cement input has little impact upon the rate of accumulation. I'm afraid I don't get it.
Turning to the chart you post - I'd draw attention to how there seems to be little / no connection between the total forcings model (black line) and the actual temp curve (purple line). The large negative forcings - which I assume are the big volcanic eruptions - just don't seem to show up in the temperature record - or am I reading this wrong?
When NASA announced in one of their early papers that Earth climate varied in response to natural processes for the first half the 20th Century but this changed to be dominated by GHG in the second half they lost my vote. As a humble geologist I would presume that the natural processes would continue and that the anthropogenic GHG signal is laid on top of this natural variability. So as I see things we had a natural warming cycle 1980ish to 1998 that was perhaps amplified by GHG forcing and since 1998 we have entered what may be a natural cooling phase that is being mitigated by GHG forcing.
You've missed the point of my post. It's that there is a significant delay between forcing and temperature - hence, regarding your first point I'm not arguing that rate of emission has little impact on rate of accumulation (that would be silly) but rather it has little impact on the end effect, the resultant equilibrium temperature associated with the forcing.
Regarding your second point, the lack of connection between the black and purple lines is due to the slow feedbacks - that's the point of the chart. The "warming in the pipeline".
Euan,
First, there is some evidence that the southern ocean at least is saturated or saturating with CO2 (link) and there is some evidence that the pH of the oceans is dropping (link). Third, your graph shows temperature anomaly, not absolute temperature. So I assume you meant to ask where all this cooling is coming from, on water that is not necessarily cool water to begin with? (You can begin cooling boiling water, but no one would claim it is cool until it gets below wrist temperature or so I'd say.) As far as I know, SST is determined by an interplay between the atmosphere and the ocean currents but the specific origins of the PDO are not known (link). We can assume thermodynamics still holds however and that the lost heat is either going up into the atmosphere as water vapor (good news for us in drought stricken SE U.S. because that water vapor comes down as rain here) or the warmer water is getting buried and displaced by cooler water from upwelling.
*edit* Oops, I'm a little off, the wet weather in the middle U.S. right now could be from the PDO turn over. Incidentally, the reason the SE U.S. is in a drought right now is that the PDO and the atlantic multidecadal oscillation are beating in phase coupled to a El Nino/La Nina event.
I am sure it is all CO2 and nothing to do with the sun.
CO2 EMISSIONS : Range Gt C/year
1. Respiration Humans, Animals, Phytoplankton 43.5 to 52.0
2. Ocean Outgassing (Tropical Areas) 90.0 to 100.0
3. Volcanoes, Soil degassing 0.5 to 2.0
4. Soil Bacteria, Decomposition 50.0 to 60.0
5. Forest cutting, Forest fires 0.6 to 2.6
Total 184.6 to 216.6
Anthropogenic emissions (2005) 7.5
Anthropogenic Percentage of Total 4.1% to 3.5%
The AGW hypothesis is based on accumulation of that 4% human component of CO2 emissions. It assumes positive feedback from water vapor and assumes the planet and its environment does not adapt to changing conditions. There are other assumptions as well, such as no significant natural warming or cooling mechanisms.
The 4% is pretty tiny and the assumptions are contrary to observed phenomena, but aside from that the debate is settled.
Carbon dioxide forms approximately 0.04% of the Earth's atmosphere.
Euan could you be starting from a false premise here? Possibly one might say " If we burned all the oil quickly and thereby precipitated a fast economic collapse would this cause less of a *problem*, than burning it conservatively, under as slow an economic retraction as possible".
*problem* -- This word needs a bit of definition, I think. (as in, "Hey whazza problem guys? No gas for my SUV, or is the earth gonna blow up or something?":)
We have been experience a steady rising of the global average surface temperature since 1999.
We have been experience a steady rising of the global average surface temperature since 1997.
How can temperatures be rising since 1997, falling since 1998, and rising since 1999? By cherry picking the endpoints of your trendlines.
Euan,
I've heard that 'cooling since 1998' line several times. I did a bit of googling and found these two graphs.
One from the US EPA: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recenttc_triad.html, and one from Science Daily. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080116114150.htm. I can't make a cooling trend out of either one, and 10 years is long enough for one to show if it was there.
My personal local experience is that we used to routinely reach -35C. The last time we reached -30 was in 2000. I grant that last winter we got to -26 after only hitting -24 in 2007.
Remember that this data is for places like atmosphere, sea surface and the top layer of oceans. Global warming ought to include all the water in the ocean, which is where most of the energy resides. In La Nina times warm water goes down and cold comes up so the measurements in recent years are not incompatible with continued warming - it's just that the warming is hidden from us deep beneath the waves just now.
Euan,
You seem a little mixed up on temperature trends here: We have not experienced a steady lowering of the global average surface temperature since 1998. The temperature trend is up in the 5 year mean. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
Chris