Global warming: tilting at windmills

There have been several articles published in scientific journals recently regarding carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), but is the effort worth it? Will finding places to put CO₂ instead of releasing it to the atmosphere be beneficial to mankind, or could it have detrimental effects in the long run? After all, isn’t CO₂ necessary for plant life? Shouldn’t we strive for higher, rather than lower, atmospheric concentrations because of that?

FIGURE 1. As more COenters the atmosphere, each ppm has less of an effect on temperature than the one preceding it. (Data courtesy of David Archibald; images courtesy of Terry Donze)

CO₂ does have an effect on temperatures. Yet the effect is inversely logarithmic, as shown in Figure 1 from David Archibald’s paper, “Solar Cycle 24: Implications for the United States,” presented at the International Conference on Climate Change in 2008.

Because of that relationship, every additional part per million (ppm) of CO₂ added to the atmosphere has less effect on temperature than the part preceding it. One can see in the graph the level of atmospheric concentrations before the world started industrializing (280 ppm) and where it climbed to a couple of years ago (385 ppm).

A manmade problem?

Man had something to do with that, but not a lot. Former Kansas State geologist Dr. Lee Gerhard shows in his book, “Geologic Constraints on Climate Variability,” (Figure 2) just how much man is contributing to greenhouse gases – a little more than one-quarter of 1%. That number was confirmed by Augie Auer in 2007 with this breakdown:

• Nonwater vapor greenhouse gases

-Total CO₂ = 3.6%

-Total methane, nitrogen dioxide (NO), chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), et al = 1.4%

• Due to man

-CO₂ = 3.2% manmade of 3.6% total = 0.12%

-Methane = 0.066%

-NO₂ = 0.047%

-CFCs et al = 0.046%

• Total due to man = 0.279%

FIGURE 2. Humans add very little to the overall mix of greenhouse gases. (Data courtesy of Lee Gerhard)

If we completely eliminated all of man’s contributions to greenhouse gases, 99.72% of all greenhouse gases would still remain in the atmosphere. But doing so would mean no more burning of fossil fuels at all, eliminating almost 85% of our power sources at the moment, and no more motorized transportation to speak of, including ground, rail, water, and air transport. Renewables are nowhere close to providing the energy we use every day, and after the tsunami that destroyed the Fukushima reactor, nuclear is pretty much off the table for now.

Referring to Figure 1, in 20 years atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ are predicted to rise to 420 ppm, which would reduce heat emissions from the stratosphere to space by 0.4 watts/sq m (4.3 watts/sq ft). This would increase temperature on earth by 0.04°C (0.07°F).

If CO₂ concentrations rise to 620 ppm, projected to happen in 140 years, earth temperatures would increase 0.16°C (0.3°F). Even at 1,000 ppm, 2.5 times what we have now, the total temperature effect would amount to 0.4°C. All of these numbers are swamped by natural variability. We saw a 2°C (3.6°F) temperature range in the 20th century, and coming our way is a possible 2°C temperature drop predicted over the next decade due to the prolonged sunspot minimum at the end of the last solar cycle and forecasts from NASA that the next two solar cycle maxima will be much lower than the last one. Sunspot counts at the moment are not even reaching their lower predictions.

FIGURE 3. Levels of CO₂ have been much higher in the past. (Data courtesy of David Archibald)

Good for plants

Yet when CO₂ concentration increases, plant life loves it! Archibald found that if CO₂ concentration was increased by 300 ppm, about 75% above what we have today, the things we like to eat increase their growth rates between 20% and almost 50%:

• C3 cereals, 49%;
• C4 cereals, 20%;
• Fruits and melons, 24%;
• Legumes, 44%;
• Roots and tubers, 48%; and
• Vegetables, 37%.

Archibald said that we would be much better off with higher levels of atmospheric CO₂ because, although it has a miniscule warming effect, agricultural production will increase significantly. He puts a minimum level of needed atmospheric CO₂ concentration at 1,000 ppm.

That seems high by today’s standards, but what is the “correct” safe limit? Jim Hansen, considered the father of global warming at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said the maximum safe CO₂ limit is 350 ppm. That is 10% below the level we have today, but don’t be alarmed. Look at CO₂ concentrations over geologic time in Figure 3, also from Archibald. Two things are readily evident concerning CO₂ concentrations over time. First, for more than 500 million years of geologic time the average concentration levels were much higher than what we see today, even with our present industrialization, and averaged 2,500 ppm. Second, CO₂ concentrations have been decreasing over time. In the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous 150 million years ago, giant dinosaurs had enough to eat because concentrations were around 2,000 ppm, fueling huge plant growth. But if concentrations get too low, what happens? At atmospheric CO₂ levels below 200 ppm, plant growth starts shutting down. This could have disastrous effects for areas already having a hard time growing enough food to feed starving populations.

Another significant characteristic of atmospheric CO₂ is that it is more a follower than a driver of temperature change. CO₂ rise post-dates temperature rise by anywhere from a few hundred years to a few thousand years. Figure 4, from Khilyuk and Chilingar’s 2003 paper, “Global Warming: Are We Confusing Cause and Effect,” also referenced in Gerhard’s book, shows the lag.

FIGURE 4. There is a significant lag between temperature change and a rise in CO₂ levels. (Data courtesy of Lee Gerhard)

Astrophysicist Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center of Astrophysics said that there is a clear scientific consensus on the lagging effect of CO₂ concentrations increasing after temperatures go up, strictly due to the oceans heating up as the planet warms and pushing CO₂ out of solution and into the atmosphere. One can witness a similar phenomenon by opening a warm can of soda.

Why worry?

Should we be worrying about sequestering CO₂ at all? Some say we need to do so because increasing amounts of atmospheric CO₂ are causing the planet to warm up. Yet over the last decade temperatures have actually fallen. Figure 5 shows surface temperature data from the Hadley Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University in the UK as well as satellite temperatures from the University of Alabama-Huntsville’s Microwave Sounding Unit. Note that the temperatures are colder in space, but both readings track in the same downward direction.

The superimposed CO₂ readings from Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii show a fairly steady increase over the same time period. There is no correlation between theCO₂ trend and the temperature trend. If increased atmospheric CO₂ concentrations are driving temperatures up, it is not apparent from the data.

But about 400 years ago the world was in the midst of the Little Ice Age, when the Vikings were run out of Greenland before they froze to death along with their animals and the British went ice skating on the Thames River in London. We have warmed considerably since, and so have the oceans. The rise in atmospheric CO₂ concentrations that we see today corresponds well to the time lags we have seen throughout history of increasing atmospheric CO₂ after temperature rise.

The anthropogenic global warming debate is not over yet, and the science is definitely not settled. More than 32,000 American scientists, about one-third of whom are doctors of philosophy, have signed the petition circulated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine that states, in part, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing … catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere.” Additionally, the petition states that “there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric CO₂ produce many beneficial effects.” The petition can be accessed online at oism.org/pproject/.

FIGURE 5. Surface and satellite temperature readings indicate a lowering in temperature over the past few years. (Data courtesy of the Hadley Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University and the University of Alabama-Huntsville Microwave Sounding Unit)

So the question of sequestering CO₂ in the name of preventing catastrophic global warming becomes this: Is it worth it, or is it just another version of Don Quixote tilting at windmills, potentially causing self-injury in the process? The data implies the latter.

This article is excerpted from sections of Terry Donze’s new book, “Climate Realism: Alarmism Exposed.”