Longevity of Anthropogenic CO2

[Old Rocks]

Looks like part of our CO2 addition to the atmosphere may outlast us as a species.

http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2008.tail_implications.pdf

The millennial atmospheric lifetime
of anthropogenic CO2
David Archer & Victor Brovkin
Received: 19 December 2006 / Published online: 4 June 2008
# The Author(s) 2008
Abstract The notion is pervasive in the climate science community and in the public at
large that the climate impacts of fossil fuel CO2 release will only persist for a few centuries.
This conclusion has no basis in theory or models of the atmosphere/ocean carbon cycle,
which we review here. The largest fraction of the CO2 recovery will take place on time
scales of centuries, as CO2 invades the ocean, but a significant fraction of the fossil fuel
CO2, ranging in published models in the literature from 20–60%, remains airborne for a
thousand years or longer. Ultimate recovery takes place on time scales of hundreds of
thousands of years, a geologic longevity typically associated in public perceptions with
nuclear waste. The glacial/interglacial climate cycles demonstrate that ice sheets and sea
level respond dramatically to millennial-timescale changes in climate forcing. There are
also potential positive feedbacks in the carbon cycle, including methane hydrates in the
ocean, and peat frozen in permafrost, that are most sensitive to the long tail of the fossil fuel
CO2 in the atmosphere.

David Archer of the University of Chicago and Victor Brovkin of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology

 

[Midnight Marauder]

CO2 is CO2, right?

Or is CO2 from burning fossil fuels a premium brand?

What a bunch of crap.

Make the boogeyman MOAR scary!

 

[wirebender]

Looks like part of our CO2 addition to the atmosphere may outlast us as a species.

Gullible is the first word that comes to my mind when I read your posts. You are one of those who will accept and repeat anything so long as it supports your position without regard, no, without even wondering if it may be true. Your abstract states pretty clearly that the data is from models and we all (even you) know that the models are steaming piles of horse puckey. If you would like a scorecard listing the various models and the accuracy of their predictions, I will be happy to provide one for you.

There have been numerous studies performed over the years examining the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere. The guys you reference clearly have taken only one to heart. Here is a graph showing the various studies (feel free to look them up) and their findings. Does the IPCC graph strike you as odd when compared to the rest?

I would recommend that you take some time to actually learn the facts before you repeat the pronouncements of your priests, but I know it would do no good; so you just keep pitching them and a skeptic will always be there with some facts to knock them out of the park.

 

[wirebender]

CO2 is CO2, right?

Or is CO2 from burning fossil fuels a premium brand?

What a bunch of crap.

Make the boogeyman MOAR scary!

Note that the study is looking at models, not observed data. We all know how good the models are, don't we?

 

[del]

Looks like part of our CO2 addition to the atmosphere may outlast us as a species.

http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2008.tail_implications.pdf

The millennial atmospheric lifetime
of anthropogenic CO2
David Archer & Victor Brovkin
Received: 19 December 2006 / Published online: 4 June 2008
# The Author(s) 2008
Abstract The notion is pervasive in the climate science community and in the public at
large that the climate impacts of fossil fuel CO2 release will only persist for a few centuries.
This conclusion has no basis in theory or models of the atmosphere/ocean carbon cycle,
which we review here. The largest fraction of the CO2 recovery will take place on time
scales of centuries, as CO2 invades the ocean, but a significant fraction of the fossil fuel
CO2, ranging in published models in the literature from 20–60%, remains airborne for a
thousand years or longer. Ultimate recovery takes place on time scales of hundreds of
thousands of years, a geologic longevity typically associated in public perceptions with
nuclear waste. The glacial/interglacial climate cycles demonstrate that ice sheets and sea
level respond dramatically to millennial-timescale changes in climate forcing. There are
also potential positive feedbacks in the carbon cycle, including methane hydrates in the
ocean, and peat frozen in permafrost, that are most sensitive to the long tail of the fossil fuel
CO2 in the atmosphere.

David Archer of the University of Chicago and Victor Brovkin of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology

you really are a moron.



does anthropogenic CO2 come with little wings or paragliders that plain old CO2 doesn't have?

fuckwit

 

[DiamondDave]

This is so damn laughable... I think I sprayed half my coffee on the screen

 

[wirebender]

you really are a moron.



does anthropogenic CO2 come with little wings or paragliders that plain old CO2 doesn't have?

fuckwit

Anthropogenic CO2 molecules wear T shirts. Perhaps from the Hard Rock Cafe.

 

[Old Rocks]

CO2 is CO2, right?

Or is CO2 from burning fossil fuels a premium brand?

What a bunch of crap.

Make the boogeyman MOAR scary!

Practicing being stupid? You really don't need the practice. CO2 from any source will last the same amount of time. However, at present, we are the primary source. That could change as the feedbacks melt the permafrost and the Arctic Ocean clathrates kick in.

 

[Old Rocks]

Looks like part of our CO2 addition to the atmosphere may outlast us as a species.

Gullible is the first word that comes to my mind when I read your posts. You are one of those who will accept and repeat anything so long as it supports your position without regard, no, without even wondering if it may be true. Your abstract states pretty clearly that the data is from models and we all (even you) know that the models are steaming piles of horse puckey. If you would like a scorecard listing the various models and the accuracy of their predictions, I will be happy to provide one for you.

There have been numerous studies performed over the years examining the residence time of CO2 in the atmosphere. The guys you reference clearly have taken only one to heart. Here is a graph showing the various studies (feel free to look them up) and their findings. Does the IPCC graph strike you as odd when compared to the rest?

I would recommend that you take some time to actually learn the facts before you repeat the pronouncements of your priests, but I know it would do no good; so you just keep pitching them and a skeptic will always be there with some facts to knock them out of the park.

Link to source?

 

[Old Rocks]

This is just as meaningful as the unsourced chart you posted, Bender;

Carbon Dioxide Residence Time in the Atmosphere | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

 

[Si modo]

CO2 is CO2, right?

Or is CO2 from burning fossil fuels a premium brand?

What a bunch of crap.

Make the boogeyman MOAR scary!

Practicing being stupid? You really don't need the practice. CO2 from any source will last the same amount of time. However, at present, we are the primary source. That could change as the feedbacks melt the permafrost and the Arctic Ocean clathrates kick in.

Man-made CO2 is a small percentage of the total atmospheric CO2, at least according to the DOE, so who knows what the hell you are trying to say.

 

[Old Rocks]

Manmade CO2 is about 40% of the present atmospheric load of CO2. From 240 ppm to 390 ppm. And I beleive what Professor Archer;

David Archer
David Archer
BioI have been a professor in the Department of The Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago since 1993. I have worked on a wide range of topics pertaining to the global carbon cycle and its relation to global climate, with special focus on ocean sedimentary processes such as CaCO3 dissolution and methane hydrate formation, and their impact on the evolution of atmospheric CO2. I teach classes on global warming, environmental chemistry, and global geochemical cycles.
BooksGlobal Warming: Understanding the Forecast, a textbook for non-science major undergraduates, Blackwell-Wiley, 2006. A companion web site provides interactive models and class lectures.
The Long Thaw: How Humans are Changing the Next 1000,000 Years of Earth's Climate, published by Princeton University Press, 2009.
The Climate Crisis: An introductory guide to climate change, December, 2009, Cambridge University Press.
David Archer | Department of the Geophysical Sciences | The University of Chicago | The University of Chicago

And Professor Brovkin;

Submitted



Schneider von Deimling, T., Meinshausen, M., Levermann, A., Huber, V., Frieler, K., Lawrence, D.M., Brovkin, V., Estimating the permafrost-carbon feedback on global warming, Biogeosciences.



Brovkin, V., van Bodegom, P.M., Kleinen, T., Wirth, C., Cornwell, W., Cornelissen, J.H.C., Kattge, J., Plant-driven variation in decomposition rates improves projections of global litter stock distribution, Geophys. Res. Lett.


In press



M. Rietkerk, V. Brovkin, P. M. van Bodegom, M. Claussen, S. C. Dekker, H. A. Dijkstra, S. V. Goryachkin, P. Kabat, E. H. van Nes, A.-M. Neutel, S. E. Nicholson, C. Nobre, V. Petoukhov, A. Provenzale, M. Scheffer, and S. I. Seneviratne, Local ecosystem feedbacks and critical transitions in the climate, Ecological Complexity.



Andreev A.A., Schirrmeister, L., Tarasov, P.E., Ganopolski, A., Brovkin, V., Siegert, C., Hubberten H.-W., Vegetation and climate history in the Laptev Sea region (arctic Siberia) during Late Quaternary inferred from pollen records, Quaternary Science Reviews.



Kleinen, T., Tarasov, P., Brovkin, V., Andreev, A., Stebich, M. Comparison of modeled and reconstructed changes in forest cover through the past 8000 years: Eurasian perspective. The Holocene.

2011


Vamborg, F. S. E., Brovkin, V. , and Claussen, M., 2011. The effect of a dynamic background albedo scheme on Sahel/Sahara precipitation during the mid-Holocene, Climate of the Past, 7, 117–131.



Bouttes, N., Paillard, D., D. M. Roche, V. Brovkin, and L. Bopp, 2011. Last Glacial Maximum CO2 and d13C successfully reconciled, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L02705, doi:10.1029/2010GL044499.

2010


Jungclaus, J.H., S.J. Lorenz, C. Timmreck, C.H. Reick, V. Brovkin, K. Six, J. Segschneider, M.A. Giorgetta, T.J. Crowley, J. Pongratz, N.A. Krivova, L.E. Vieira, S.K. Solanki, D. Klocke, M. Botzet, M. Esch, V. Gayler, H. Haak, T.J. Raddatz, E. Roeckner, R. Schnur, H. Widmann, M. Claussen, B. Stevens, and J. Marotzke, 2010. Climate and carbon-cycle variability over the last millennium. Climate of the Past, 6, 723–737.



Goosse, H., V. Brovkin, T. Fichefet, R. Haarsma, P. Huybrechts, J. Jongma, A. Mouchet, F. Selten, P.-Y. Barriat, J.-M. Campin, E. Deleersnijder, E. Driesschaert, H. Goelzer, I. Janssens, M.-F. Loutre, M. A. Morales Maqueda, T. Opsteegh, P.-P. Mathieu, G. Munhoven, E. J. Pettersson, H. Renssen, D. M. Roche, M. Schaeffer, B. Tartinville, A. Timmermann, and S. L. Weber, 2010. Description of the Earth system model of intermediate complexity LOVECLIM version 1.2. Geosci. Model Dev. 3, 603–633.



Brovkin, V., Lorenz, S., Jungclaus, J., Raddatz, T., Timmreck, C., Reick, C., Segschneider, J., Six, K., 2010. Sensitivity of a coupled climate-carbon cycle model to large volcanic eruptions during the last millennium. Tellus, 62B, 674–681.



Bathiany, S., M. Claussen, V. Brovkin, T. Raddatz, and V. Gayler, 2010. Combined biogeophysical and biogeochemical effects of large-scale forest cover changes in the MPI earth system model, Biogeosciences, 7, 1383-1399.




Brovkin, V., Reick, C., van Bodegom, P., European Biospheric Network Takes Off, Eos, 91 (17), 155.



Dekker S.C., de Boer H.J., Wassen MJ, Rietkerk M., Brovkin, V., 2010. Multiple climate-vegetation equilibria associated with global biogeophysical feedbacks, Biogeosciences, 7, 1237–1245.



Kleinen, T., Brovkin, V., Archer, D., von Bloh, W., and Munhoven, G., 2010. Holocene carbon cycle dynamics, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L02705, doi:10.1029/2009GL041391
Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie: publications

Are saying is that GHGs that we are putting into the atmosphere will have effects that outlast us as a species.

However, not to worry, most here only give a shit about the next six months.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Oh look! A bunch of educated people are wrong! Didn't see that coming!

Stop trying to steal peoples money with your modern day "snake oil sales scam" oldrocks.

 

[Old Rocks]

OK, Maddy, you really think that most of the scientists of today are a bunch of thieves? Do you also hide under the bed when a 'black' helicopter flies over?

Care to show one scientific society, on either a national or international level that denys AGW?

 

[Si modo]

Manmade CO2 is about 40% of the present atmospheric load of CO2. From 240 ppm to 390 ppm. And I beleive what Professor Archer;

David Archer
David Archer
BioI have been a professor in the Department of The Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago since 1993. I have worked on a wide range of topics pertaining to the global carbon cycle and its relation to global climate, with special focus on ocean sedimentary processes such as CaCO3 dissolution and methane hydrate formation, and their impact on the evolution of atmospheric CO2. I teach classes on global warming, environmental chemistry, and global geochemical cycles.
BooksGlobal Warming: Understanding the Forecast, a textbook for non-science major undergraduates, Blackwell-Wiley, 2006. A companion web site provides interactive models and class lectures.
The Long Thaw: How Humans are Changing the Next 1000,000 Years of Earth's Climate, published by Princeton University Press, 2009.
The Climate Crisis: An introductory guide to climate change, December, 2009, Cambridge University Press.
David Archer | Department of the Geophysical Sciences | The University of Chicago | The University of Chicago

And Professor Brovkin;

Submitted



Schneider von Deimling, T., Meinshausen, M., Levermann, A., Huber, V., Frieler, K., Lawrence, D.M., Brovkin, V., Estimating the permafrost-carbon feedback on global warming, Biogeosciences.



Brovkin, V., van Bodegom, P.M., Kleinen, T., Wirth, C., Cornwell, W., Cornelissen, J.H.C., Kattge, J., Plant-driven variation in decomposition rates improves projections of global litter stock distribution, Geophys. Res. Lett.


In press



M. Rietkerk, V. Brovkin, P. M. van Bodegom, M. Claussen, S. C. Dekker, H. A. Dijkstra, S. V. Goryachkin, P. Kabat, E. H. van Nes, A.-M. Neutel, S. E. Nicholson, C. Nobre, V. Petoukhov, A. Provenzale, M. Scheffer, and S. I. Seneviratne, Local ecosystem feedbacks and critical transitions in the climate, Ecological Complexity.



Andreev A.A., Schirrmeister, L., Tarasov, P.E., Ganopolski, A., Brovkin, V., Siegert, C., Hubberten H.-W., Vegetation and climate history in the Laptev Sea region (arctic Siberia) during Late Quaternary inferred from pollen records, Quaternary Science Reviews.



Kleinen, T., Tarasov, P., Brovkin, V., Andreev, A., Stebich, M. Comparison of modeled and reconstructed changes in forest cover through the past 8000 years: Eurasian perspective. The Holocene.

2011


Vamborg, F. S. E., Brovkin, V. , and Claussen, M., 2011. The effect of a dynamic background albedo scheme on Sahel/Sahara precipitation during the mid-Holocene, Climate of the Past, 7, 117–131.



Bouttes, N., Paillard, D., D. M. Roche, V. Brovkin, and L. Bopp, 2011. Last Glacial Maximum CO2 and d13C successfully reconciled, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L02705, doi:10.1029/2010GL044499.

2010


Jungclaus, J.H., S.J. Lorenz, C. Timmreck, C.H. Reick, V. Brovkin, K. Six, J. Segschneider, M.A. Giorgetta, T.J. Crowley, J. Pongratz, N.A. Krivova, L.E. Vieira, S.K. Solanki, D. Klocke, M. Botzet, M. Esch, V. Gayler, H. Haak, T.J. Raddatz, E. Roeckner, R. Schnur, H. Widmann, M. Claussen, B. Stevens, and J. Marotzke, 2010. Climate and carbon-cycle variability over the last millennium. Climate of the Past, 6, 723–737.



Goosse, H., V. Brovkin, T. Fichefet, R. Haarsma, P. Huybrechts, J. Jongma, A. Mouchet, F. Selten, P.-Y. Barriat, J.-M. Campin, E. Deleersnijder, E. Driesschaert, H. Goelzer, I. Janssens, M.-F. Loutre, M. A. Morales Maqueda, T. Opsteegh, P.-P. Mathieu, G. Munhoven, E. J. Pettersson, H. Renssen, D. M. Roche, M. Schaeffer, B. Tartinville, A. Timmermann, and S. L. Weber, 2010. Description of the Earth system model of intermediate complexity LOVECLIM version 1.2. Geosci. Model Dev. 3, 603–633.



Brovkin, V., Lorenz, S., Jungclaus, J., Raddatz, T., Timmreck, C., Reick, C., Segschneider, J., Six, K., 2010. Sensitivity of a coupled climate-carbon cycle model to large volcanic eruptions during the last millennium. Tellus, 62B, 674–681.



Bathiany, S., M. Claussen, V. Brovkin, T. Raddatz, and V. Gayler, 2010. Combined biogeophysical and biogeochemical effects of large-scale forest cover changes in the MPI earth system model, Biogeosciences, 7, 1383-1399.




Brovkin, V., Reick, C., van Bodegom, P., European Biospheric Network Takes Off, Eos, 91 (17), 155.



Dekker S.C., de Boer H.J., Wassen MJ, Rietkerk M., Brovkin, V., 2010. Multiple climate-vegetation equilibria associated with global biogeophysical feedbacks, Biogeosciences, 7, 1237–1245.



Kleinen, T., Brovkin, V., Archer, D., von Bloh, W., and Munhoven, G., 2010. Holocene carbon cycle dynamics, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L02705, doi:10.1029/2009GL041391
Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie: publications

Are saying is that GHGs that we are putting into the atmosphere will have effects that outlast us as a species.

However, not to worry, most here only give a shit about the next six months.

Yet, man-made CO2 is ~3% of the total CO2 in the atmosphere. Or, do you want to tell us that the DoE is lying? That's a far cry from your claim that man is the primary source of it.

 

[Old Rocks]

Well, since you did not give a link, how would I know that is what the DOE stated. However, since the highest level of CO2 in the last 650,000 years was about 300 ppm 120K years ago, and the level was 280 150 years ago, and is now 390 ppm, and Isotopol analysis shows that the addition came from fossil fuel, I question what your point is.

Or do you contest the numbers 280 ppm and 390 ppm? On what basis?

 

[IanC]

if we are so succeptible to tipping points why havent we tipped in the past? the arctic has been ice free in the past and the clathrates have given up their methane, etc. And life went on. Even if the ice sheets melt we would be better off than if we have mile thick ice reaching down to middle america. fifty or a hundred years from now we will have a lot more information and an expanded set of tools to fine tune the climate if we have to, but I doubt that we will need to.

 

[Old Rocks]

Geological Society - Back to the future with climate change

Geoscientist 20.05 May 2010

There is huge political and societal concern over, as well as scientific interest in, current climate change and global warming. It comes as something of a surprise, therefore, to discover that we are not learning from past warming episodes with more than a passing similarity to the one we are currently initiating.

One such possibly analogous climate event took place in the early Eocene 55 million years ago and is usually known as the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). Back in 2007, when I last wrote in these pages about it, the IPCC's newly published fourth scientific assessment skated around the early Eocene-analogue issues. Its chapter on palaeoclimates had a sub-section on it and the chapter on the atmosphere did cover the present carbon isotope excursion (CIE) due to fossil fuel release and deforestation. Otherwise the IPCC does not connect the two – coming closest when it wrote:

“Although there is still too much uncertainty in the data to derive a quantitative estimate of climate sensitivity from the PETM [Palaeocene Eocene Thermal Maximum], the event is a striking example of massive carbon release and related extreme climatic warming.”

One of the preferred theories is that back in the late Palaeocene to early Eocene, volcanic activity caused the realease of greenhouse gases, which warmed the Earth sufficiently to destabilise marine methane hydrates (clathrates) that then further warmed the planet. Because both fossil fuel and methane clathrate carbon is photosynthetically derived (photosynthesis prefers the C-12 isotope) there is a difference in the isotope ratio of both organic and carbonate carbon in sediments of this time, and we can use the resulting carbon isotope excursion (CIE) to estimate how much carbon was involved, and ask: is the current pulse of warming that we have initiated likely to destabilise present-day ocean clathrates in the same way? We do not have to go back as far as the PETM to find indications of methane release from ocean hydrates affecting the climate. Methane clathrate releases may account for some climatic change within the last glacial, and even may have helped take us out of the last glacial maximum towards its end around 18,000 years ago. So even if Milankovitch was the glacial end's “pacemaker”, methane clathrate destabilisation may have been one of the climate amplifiers.

 

[Si modo]

Well, since you did not give a link, how would I know that is what the DOE stated. However, since the highest level of CO2 in the last 650,000 years was about 300 ppm 120K years ago, and the level was 280 150 years ago, and is now 390 ppm, and Isotopol analysis shows that the addition came from fossil fuel, I question what your point is.

Or do you contest the numbers 280 ppm and 390 ppm? On what basis?

Oh, so since 1750 the ONLY CO2 in the atmosphere is from man, eh?

Damn. Just damn.

Simple arithmetic, Rocks - at least it doesn't lie.

Man made CO2 is ~3% of the total CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.

 

[Old Rocks]

Clathrates

METHANE TRIGGER: Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas which, despite its atmospheric lifetime of around 12 years, none the less has a global warming potential of 62 over 20 years and 21 over 100 years (IPCC, 1996; Berner and Berner, 1996; vanLoon and Duffy, 2000). The sudden release of large amounts of natural gas from methane clathrate deposits is suggested as a cause of past and possibly future climate changes. Events possibly linked in this way are the Permian-Triassic extinction event, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

Methane clathrate, also called methane hydrate or methane ice, is a solid form of water that contains a large amount of methane within its crystal structure (clathrate hydrate). Originally thought to occur only in the outer regions of the solar system where temperatures are low and water ice is common, extremely large deposits of methane clathrate have been found under sediments on the ocean floors of Earth. Hydrates only form in a narrow range of depths such as those of continental shelves.


Methane clathrates are common constituents of the shallow marine geosphere