Biochemistry professor explains why the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere is only 14 years

Dr. Gösta Pettersson, Professor Emeritus of biochemistry and specialist in reaction kinetics, further explains why the computer model ["The Bern Model'] used by the IPCC to predict CO2 lifetimes of over 100 years is highly flawed and is strongly contradicted by observations from both atomic bomb testing and atmospheric levels of CO2 [the Keeling Curve]. 

Dr. Pettersson finds "the IPCC extremely (about tenfold) underestimated both the speed of the final location for the natural disposal of atmospheric carbon dioxide" by natural sinks. The assumption of the "IPCC Bern model that 22% of atmospheric carbon dioxide surplus can never be removed from the air seems quite amateurish considering that the present empirical observations (Fig. 1) confirms that at least 95% of the bomb test excess of 14C-carbon dioxide has been removed "already" after 50 years." 

"Paper 2 shows the bomb curve estimated value of the CO2 relaxation time (14 years) and concludes that the IPCC-backed climate models overestimate future anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration by a factor of 3-15 depending on the emissions scenario and the considered time period. This means that emissions of fossil carbon dioxide can not be expected to lead to a politically unacceptable global warming (two degree target), even according to the IPCC's worst case discharge scenarios, the longest present experimentally determined estimate of the relaxation time, and the alarmist climate models' own estimates of the greenhouse effect strength."

"The IPCC has been scientifically untenable reasons turned a blind eye to the present very extensive and entirely consistent experimental results concerning CO2 relaxation and preferred to base their assessments on a mathematical model that lacks empirical support, and even contrary to the observations made."

Bomb Test curve - nature's simple answers to complex relationships

31/08/2013  156 Comments  Guest Post by Gösta Pettersson  [Google translation from Swedish + light editing]

Figure 1.   Time course (black data points) for the relaxation of the excess of 14C-carbon dioxide as the above-ground nuclear tests showed, indicating a much shorter atmospheric lifetime of CO2 than assumed by the IPCC [blue line of the Bern Model].

Peter Stilbs and Pehr Björnbom have in TCS messages noticed my book False alarm and my conclusion that bomb test curve (figure above) falsifies the underpinning for climate models projections of future carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures. The inserts gave rise to a rather intense debate. Many commentators stressed the complexity of the carbon cycle, and hinted that I underestimated this by basing my conclusion solely on bomb test curve. "There's more to it" was one comment. "Gösta makes it too easy for themselves," was another.

I can understand the doubt. Kolcykelproblematiken a whole is very complex. Hydrosphere uptake of carbon dioxide is dependent on wind, temperature, rainfall, etc. according to little-understood relationship (eg. Revelle effect). The spread of the absorbed carbon dioxide from the surface waters to deeper water layers can be made according to several different mechanisms and span time scales from the second level to centuries. The yield of carbon dioxide between the air and the biosphere is likewise by a variety of processes of widely different time scales. Are you interested in what happens to the carbon value after it has been transferred from the air to the outdoors in general, then you can be served by kolcykelmodeller who, like Bern model looking observe and describe the effects of the present heterogeneities and other mechanistic complications in the total carbon dioxide exchange .

The situation is completely different if you have the limited objective of ascertaining the extent to which anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions contribute to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (and hence an increase in the greenhouse effect). Then you only need to know the kinetics of an atmospheric CO2 relaxation (equilibration), ie. knowing how quickly and to what extent an excess of carbon dioxide removed from the air. Bomb Test curve provides just such information to more than 95% of the relaxation of the excess pulse of 14C-labeled carbon dioxide as the above-ground nuclear tests resulted. The graph shows the net result of the disparate events that helped to remove the anthropogenic input excess C14 emissions by transferring it from the air to the outdoors in general. The curve represents the empirically determined response that nature has given us the carbon cycle all complex relationships.

C14 carbon is carbon dioxide. The relaxation processes which reduced the excess air of C14 emissions are identical to those that continuously reduces such excess carbon dioxide as the atmosphere is supplied by human activities such as the use of fossil fuels, land use change and cement production. Because of the kinetic kolisotopeffekternas small size can be also as a good approximation to assume that C14 carbon disposed with the same speed and in the same degree as carbon dioxide with different isotope composition.

These simple facts provide bomb test curve an outstanding informative weight. It tells us that the air at the end of X should contain about 91% of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions in the year X-1, approximately 85% of emissions in the year X-2, and so on back in time. Based on available historical data for the amount of emissions since the industrial revolution, one can on the basis of the appearance of the bomb curve calculate how much human activities contributed to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration up to an arbitrary subsequent years. Likewise, the curve us exactly the information we need to analogously calculate the likely future emissions of fossil carbon dioxide will contribute to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide future.

So what these climatological fundamental calculations is concerned, it is not me who makes it too easy for me, but others that make it too difficult for them. One does not know why the bomb test curve looks the way it does. Suffice it to say how it looks and to base their calculations on this look. One need not resort to models that consider what happens to the carbon dioxide after it entered into the biosphere and hydrosphere. It is a mathematical model that provides an acceptable description of the bomb test curve, nature's answer to the critical question of how quickly and to what extent the excess carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere.

And in that respect, it is clear from Figure 1 that the [IPCC] Bern model triphasic description of curve (blue graph) is substandard and unfit for the calculation. Statistical regression analysis shows that bomb test curve is best described as enfasiskt exponential (red graph), with a relaxation time in many consistent experimental studies found to be in the order of ten years rather than the hundred years that the IPCC states on the basis of the Bern model. The bomb curve appearance gives us ample information to enable us to conclude that the IPCC extremely severely (about tenfold) underestimated both the speed of the final location for the natural disposal of atmospheric carbon dioxide excess.

Why bomb test curve looks like it does is another question of mechanistic nature.The answer may, however, also a fair indication of the kinetic analysis of the curve. The IPCC states that the relaxation of atmospheric carbon dioxide excess is highly controlled by carbon dioxide slow transport from the ocean surface to the deep sea. I have commented on this by saying that I only need to glance at the bomb test curve to realize that the IPCC's claim is incorrect.

It is needed is not more than a glance to see that bomb test curve goes towards a final value which is close to zero and certainly less than 0:05. The information is all I need to be able to classify the kinetics disposal of excess air of carbon dioxide as a virtually irreversible process. Thus, the process must essentially have the same kinetic behavior as a completely irreversible process, ie. be more than 95% controlled by the air concentration of carbon dioxide according to law of mass action. There is not even a theoretical possibility that the slow processes in the ocean can influence more than, at most, 5% of the relaxation process.

This insight is likely only to specialists with good knowledge of the relaxation kinetics theory and practice. But for non-specialists, there is an easy alternative way to arrive at the same conclusion, since bomb test curve is found to follow an exponential progression.

Exponential decay of an excess concentration may be namely for purely mathematical reasons, then, and only then, the corresponding reaction rate is proportional to the concentration variable in question. The observation that bomb test excess of 14C-carbon dioxide removal in an exponential progression tells us, then, that the removal occurred at a speed which was proportional to the air concentration of the C14-labeled carbon dioxide. The observed part (95%) of the relaxation process has therefore been guided by the air content of C14-carbon dioxide, in accordance with the law of mass action applied to a completely irreversible process. Slow processes in the ocean can at most affect the removal of the remaining 5% of the excess carbon dioxide, ie. the final stage of the relaxation process that we have not yet had the opportunity to observe.

The conclusion that airborne carbon surplus raised virtually irreversible by natural sinks, one might also benefit from the IPCC, the data presented for the equilibrium distribution of carbon between the atmosphere (1.5%), and nature in general (98.5%). Bomb Sample curve only confirms that nature behaves as it theoretically might expect in such a case. In addition to consolidating the Uppsjön of published experimental measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide retention (which invariably fall within the range 2-14 years) in principle is fully acceptable as estimates of carbon dioxide relaxation. IPCC lacks any any theoretical justification for its idiot explanation of climatic pioneers Bolin, Revelle, Suess et al. the ground that they measured the wrong kind of retention, one that is not relevant to the relaxation of excess carbon dioxide.

A scientific presentation of my kinetic analysis of the bomb test curve can be found in Paper 1 on the English-language website False alarm . There is also the scientific arguments showing that Bern model is in conflict with the present empirical data. From a theoretical aspect, Bern model grossest error prescribing the equilibrium distribution of carbon between air and nature in general is 22%: 78% ie. that the model makes natural uptake of carbon dioxide around 15 times reversiblare than what we know it is under the IPCC kolcykeldata.

Bern model's designers actually suggest that preindustrial atmospheric equilibrium concentration of carbon dioxide was about 5000 ppm, but apparently lack sufficient kinetic skills to realize that their model has this absurd consequence. Neither have the skills enough to realize that the reaction system equilibrium constants are fixed by the thermodynamic relations and not with a custom size in the construction of a kinetic model. Bern model of the IPCC accepted and utilized instruction to 22% of atmospheric carbon dioxide surplus can never be removed from the air seems quite amateurish considering that the present empirical observations (Fig. 1) confirms that at least 95% of the bomb test excess of 14C-carbon dioxide has been removed "already" after 50 years.

Paper 2 on the above website shows that in order it from the bomb cvurve estimated value of the relaxation time (14 years) concludes that the IPCC-backed climate models overestimate future anthropogenic contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration by a factor of 3-15 depending on the emissions scenario and the considered time period. This means that emissions of fossil carbon dioxide can not be expected to lead to a politically unacceptable global warming (two degree target), even according to the IPCC's worst case discharge scenarios, the longest present experimentally determined estimate of the relaxation time, and the alarmist climate models' own estimates of the greenhouse effect strength.

The IPCC has been scientifically untenable reasons turned a blind eye to the present very extensive and entirely consistent experimental results concerning CO2 relaxation and preferred to base their assessments on a mathematical model that lacks empirical support, and even contrary to the observations made. How can that be? My own answer to this question, I came to when I found that the corresponding section in the IPCC reports had Bern model two constructors as head writer (Siegenthaler in the first report and Joos in the subsequent three reports). The probability should be zero to those IPCC experts would realize his model shortcomings and persuade annul it. Something I with different slant cover in Chapter 15:5 - 6) of my book False alarm.

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