Accelerating Future

Atmospheric CO2 Levels Over Geologic Time Tuesday, Mar 9 2010 

images Michael Anissimov 2:42 pm

Trackback URI

16 Responses to “Atmospheric CO2 Levels Over Geologic Time”

1. mitchell porter says:

   March 9, 2010 at 5:11 pm

   Are you stirring up trouble again? :-)

   Those temperatures come from here; while the CO2 levels come from GEOCARB, a model of the carbon cycle on geological timescales.

   Inferring what the temperature was, hundreds of millions of years ago, is necessarily a very indirect enterprise, and Scotese and Berner’s assumptions are not necessarily consistent.

   However, Berner was a coauthor on a 2004 paper called “CO2 as a primary driver of Phanerozoic climate”, so we can look there for a conceptually unified account. The counterpart to the mashup above is that paper’s figure 2. In the end it’s not so different to Scotese, though it doesn’t have a temperature curve, just a bar graph indicating warm climate, cool climate, or glacial climate. The latter refers to any period in which there are polar icecaps, so even though we’re in an interglacial period now, this is still an “ice age” by the geological definition.

   In their discussion (page 6) the authors begin by saying that there is broad conformity between CO2 and temperature when it comes to glacial and nonglacial:

   “with low values (< 500 ppm) during periods of intense and long-lived glaciation (Permo-Carboniferous [330–260 Ma] and late Cenozoic [past 30 m.y.]) and high values (> 1000 ppm) at all other times. The late Ordovician (~440 Ma) represents the only interval during which glacial conditions apparently coexisted with a CO2-rich atmosphere.”

   Their take on the late Ordovician anomaly is that it was brief (less than 15 million years) and any temporary drop in CO2 that brief would easily be missed by GEOCARB. They say there *is* evidence of such a drop, but further research is required.

   I guess I’d also point out that the climate change which people are trying to prevent now barely registers on the chart above. The complete melting of the polar icecaps is generally considered the apotheosis of climate disaster, albeit something that would require centuries to occur; and polar icecaps were completely absent during the warm periods.

   Reply
2. Steve Burrows says:

   March 10, 2010 at 12:43 pm

   We’re all gonna die.

   Reply
3. Tim Tyler says:

   March 10, 2010 at 5:20 pm

   For the “Ordovician anomaly”, see the recent article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18618-highcarbon-ice-age-mystery-solved.html

   Reply
4. Robert Wiblin says:

   March 10, 2010 at 9:47 pm

   What’s the source on this?

   Reply
5. Michael Anissimov says:

   March 11, 2010 at 12:14 pm

   Robert,

   See the first comment. :-|

   Reply
6. Jordan says:

   March 12, 2010 at 2:44 pm

   Er… is my pattern recognition module malfunctioning or is there no relationship between CO2 and temperature in that graph?

   Reply
   • Richard Stead says:

     January 4, 2011 at 8:47 am

     I do think that was the intention of the person who produced the graph.

     Reply
7. Justin Loew says:

   March 13, 2010 at 7:08 am

   Thanks for posting the graph Michael. It demonstrates that on long geologic time scales CO2 has very little or no influence on global temperature. There are bigger processes at work. However, on the time scale of the next century I think there should be “some” concern about the build-up of CO2 and other anthropogenic “greenhouse gases”.

   The physics of radiative forcing and the models derived from such are quite sound (as sound as unstable non-linear models can be). The place where the models and the various apocalyptic warnings fall short is in the static or linear inputs. The modelers assume ever increasing use of fossil fuels through at least 2050, and in some scenarios through 2100 (see here: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg3/ar4-wg3-chapter4.pdf). Particularly disturbing is the forecast of increasing oil production, which goes against the majority of findings from studies conducted by geologists and oil industry experts. Some experts think we have already reached the peak of world oil production.

   Due to the likelihood of lower fossil fuel production or the advance of new energy technology, I do not think the worst of “global warming” will come to pass. In fact, I think there is a serious mis-allocation of resources. There are much greater existential risks that deserve more funding and more attention than “global warming”.

   Reply
8. Jesse M. says:

   March 16, 2010 at 1:06 am

   Whole lot of other variables changing on geological timescales that have affected climate too, like changing arrangement of continents, changing levels of other gases like oxygen, and changing brightness of the Sun itself! If you want to understand what effects changing CO2 levels will have on climate in the modern world, better to look at ice core data over the last few hundred thousand years when most of these other variables would not have been significantly different than today.

   Reply
9. Doug Winter says:

   March 17, 2010 at 11:01 pm

   My god! 20 years of peer-reviewed work have shown strong evidence for anthropogenic global warming, but in only one graph you’ve blown it out of the water.

   Those climatologists really are fools aren’t they? I reckon they’re being mind-controlled by big-government myself.

   Reply
10. Jeremiah Wood says:

    March 23, 2010 at 7:59 pm

    I would just like to add a comment by Freeman Dyson regarding this “crisis”:

    “My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.”

    Reply
11. bob mitchell says:

    November 15, 2010 at 7:40 pm

    I have been trying to get a “balanced” view of the climate debate for some time now. I am not a scientist although have undergrad quals in science from a long time ago.

    After trying to digest so much info for and against, my view is that the debate is focussing far too much on the cause of what appears to be recent warming of the planet (i.e. human or other of some combination of both) and not enough about what impacts to society, ecosystems etc may occur if the current apparent trend (of warming) continues.

    It seems to me that there is a lot of room for error on both sides (predicting the future with computer models and determining the history going back to 590 million years ago then deriving causes for smal time frames) and that regardless of the causes more effort and debate needs to be put into predicting the possible impacts of such warming. Practical solutions to these problems should be developed whatever the cause.

    Both sides predict future global warming – it boils down to when this might occur – and it seems neither has an accurate and reliable way of predicitng the WHEN.

    However it does seem to me that even in the geological time scale view there have been and will be localised ups and downs which are hidden in the low level of granularity in graphs such as the one above.

    There is one argument i have seen which seems to be posited by the climate change pundits via anthrogenic process, which is something like “we owe it to future generations to waiver on the pessimistic side just in case the climate models are accurate”.

    Well it seems to me that this probably applies to either argument.

    Perhaps both sides should agree and unite to form a better set of prediction models so we can take timely action which is pragmatic and will help reduce and manage the impact of what may ultimately be inevitable, together with gaining a better understanding of the real causes of and principal components of climate change, whatever they may be!

    Reply
12. Herbalife Venlo says:

    October 7, 2011 at 1:56 pm

    Good website! I really love how it is simple on my eyes and the data are well written. I’m wondering how I could be notified when a new post has been made. I have subscribed to your RSS which must do the trick! Have a great day! “You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.” by Eric Hoffer.

    Reply
13. Johnny Escajeda says:

    December 26, 2011 at 9:06 pm

    Hi there. Very nice website!! Guy .. Beautiful .. Wonderful .. I will bookmark your site and take the feeds additionally…I am satisfied to find a lot of useful info right here in the article. Thanks for sharing…

    Reply
14. instrukcja bezpieczeństwa pożarowego says:

    January 1, 2012 at 11:55 am

    Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wished to say that I have truly enjoyed browsing your blog posts. After all I’ll be subscribing to your rss feed and I hope you write again very soon!

    Reply
15. osteoporoza says:

    January 27, 2012 at 10:43 am

    Od dawna szukałem artykułu na temat Accelerating Future » Atmospheric CO2 Levels Over Geologic Time . Dzięki

    Reply