Atmospheric CO2 Levels Shift with Solar, Lunar, El Niño Variation
Analysis of the accepted global benchmark of carbon dioxide atmospheric data from the Mauna Loa Observatory reveals that El Niño events and solar and lunar variation have a marked effect on CO2 concentration.
Data Analysis:
Figure 1 shows the atmospheric CO2 concentration measured weekly at the Mauna Loa Observatory (see Ref.1) for the period 29 March 1958 to 08 August 2020. The Observatory is at Latitude 19.54° North, Longitude 155.57° West, Elevation 3397 metres. It is on the northern slope of Mauna Loa, an active volcano on the island of Hawai’i in the mid-North Pacific Ocean.
Figure 1. Mauna Loa weekly CO2 concentration
As there were missing values in the time sequence, interpolation was applied using a third order polynomial fit to adjoining data strings and a ‘weekly’ time interval of 7.02416 days, that is, one fifty second part of a year, for the following analysis of the CO2 concentration time series. The original time series consisted of 3183 values while the interpolated time series consisted of 3243 values at a uniform ‘weekly’ interval.
The series shows a regular seasonal variation superimposed on an upward trend. The linear trend for the whole period of 62 years was 1.58 ppm per annum. For the 3 year period 29 March, 1958 to 1961, the rate was 0.55 ppm pa. For the 3 year period June 2017 to 2020, the rate had steadily increased to 3.08 ppm pa. For the 3 year period July 2017 to 2020, the rate was 3.31 ppm pa and for the 3 year period August 2017to 2020, the rate was 3.34 ppm pa, more than six times greater than 60 years earlier. The acceleration in the rate of generation of CO2 over the time of the measurements is attributed to an increase in biogenic CO2 in response to the gradual increase in temperature since the end of the Little Ice Age. Justification for this claim can be seen in a comparison between the dearth of life at the cold Poles and the profusion of life, in a myriad of forms, in the warm Equatorial zone. Life forms flourish with greater temperature.
There are two inflections in the graph corresponding to the time of the volcanic eruptions at Mount Agung, Bali, Indonesia, 17 March and 16 May, 1963, and Mount Pinatubo, Philippines, 12 June 1991. The increase in the CO2 concentration appears to have ceased, presumably due to the ash cloud diminishing the Sun’s radiation and the consequent photosynthesis and temperature at the Earth’s surface. The Mauna Loa Observatory is 9598 km on a bearing of 71̊East from
Mount Agung and 8859 km on a bearing of 72̊East from Mount Pinatubo. These events contrast with the lack of any change in the accelerating rate of increase of CO2 during the reduction of economic activity from the 2020 pandemic bringing into question the claim that CO2 has been increasing due to the activities of mankind.
The amplitude of the seasonal variation ranged from 5.9 ppm early in the series to 9.3 ppm in the later part of the series, changing from year to year in an irregular fashion but clearly increasing in amplitude over time. The maximum in the seasonal variation occurred on average in mid-May at the start of Summer while the minimum occurred at the end of September, just prior to Winter. This is attributed to the Summer sunshine causing an increase in photosynthesis which absorbs CO2 resulting in the fall in CO2 concentration. The decay of vegetation in the cold of Winter releases CO2 resulting in a rise in the CO2 concentration. That is, the concentration is decreasing during the heat of Summer and increasing during the cool of Winter putting it at odds with the UN IPCC claim that an increase in CO2 concentration causes a temperature increase.
The annual rate of change of the CO2 concentration was determined from the interpolated ‘weekly’ time series by taking the difference between values 52 weeks apart and is shown in Figure 2. It displays the estimated annual rate of change of the CO2 concentration with high frequency noise superimposed on a cyclic pattern with a linear trend of 0.0286 ppm pa per annum. The sequence of maxima and minima match that for the Oceanic Niño 3.4 Index (Ref.2).
Figure 2. Mauna Loa annual rate of change of CO2 concentration.
In order to illustrate the correlation between the two series, Figure 3 shows the detrended Mauna Loa annual rate of change of CO2 concentration, after smoothing with a low pass filter, overlain on the Oceanic Niño 3.4 Index, both covering the same 61 year period.
In considering the relationship between the two series it is necessary to be aware that the Mauna Loa rate of change was derived from a weekly series of measurements taken at a single point on the globe. The Oceanic Niño 3.4 Index is the anomaly in the sea surface temperature relative to a 30 year average over the Equatorial zone between latitudes 5° South to 5° North and longitudes 120° West to 170° West, an area of the central Pacific Ocean of 6,568,670 square kilometres.
The Mauna Loa Observatory is 2,450 km from the centre of the Ninõ 3.4 area, on a bearing of 27.5° East of North.
Figure 3. Overlay of the Oceanic Niño 3.4 Index and the Mauna Loa smoothed, detrended CO2 annual rate of change.
As has been demonstrated in earlier studies of CO2 data on the accompanying web pages, their seasonal variation has been attributed to biological sources in response to the associated temperature change. Likewise the close correlation between the Mauna Loa CO2 rate of change and the Oceanic Niño 3.4 Index, as shown by the coincidence of the major maxima in Figure 3, is attributed to a biological response to the major, world-wide climate event depicted by the Niño 3.4 Index.
There is a marked negative correlation in the centre of the graph annotated by ‘⇑’ corresponding to the major volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines on 12 June 1991 which significantly altered the relationship between the rate of change of CO2 and the Oceanic Niño 3.4 Index. The eruption caused the rate of change of CO2 to drop to a minimum as the sea surface temperatures reached a local maximum. The eruption may not have been reflected in the ONI 3.4 sea surface temperatures as Mount Pinatubo is 1675 km North of the Equator.
Autocorrelation Function:
More detail of the source of variation in the CO2 annual rate of change is shown by its autocorrelation function illustrated in Figure 5. It reveals a clear cyclic pattern based on the El Niño event as shown in the accompanying table listing the correlation maxima, Table 1.
Figure 4. Autocorrelation for CO2 annual rate of change.
The average from Table 1, column 4, adjusted for the multiple expressions of the El Niño event was 1313 days. The event clearly dominates the CO2 annual rate of change indicating that this major climate event together with the seasonal weather pattern determines the rate of generation of CO2 in the Equatorial region. This confirms the earlier proposition that the temperature level determines the rate of change of CO2 concentration seen in the monthly data for Cape Grim and Macquarie Island stations and Mt Waliguan Observatory described in the analysis of data from each site as reported in the pages of: https://www.climateauditor.com .
Discrete Fourier Transform:
Figure 6 shows the amplitude spectrum from the Discrete Fourier Transform of the interpolated time series for the annual rate of change of the CO2 concentration padded with zeros at each end to give of length of 4096 values. The amplitude scale was clipped to better display the higher frequency, shorter wavelength events so it excludes the maximum of 9.4 at x-coordinate 22, equivalent to a period of 1308 days, which dominated the autocorrelation function. That is the maximum predicted to represent the response to the El Niño event already seen in the autocorrelation function.
Figure 5. DFT Amplitude spectrum of the annual rate of change of CO2 concentration.
There is a multitude of local maxima in the Amplitude spectrum some of which have been assigned possible sources from the known synodic periods of the Moon and planets within the Solar System, being the time interval between instances of the Sun, Earth and a planet being in alignment.
Average values for these periods have been taken from the publicly available literature but may change with time. The periods drift due to the ever changing configuration of the Solar System and this may contribute to a broadening of the spectral responses. There are other periodic events, such as changes in the ellipticity of the orbits which have not been taken into account in this study.
A list of possible sources is shown in Table 2 for a selection of the peaks in the DFT amplitude spectrum. They are listed by the coordinate on the x axis, in cycles per 4096 weeks, and the amplitude of response with period in years and days for ease of reference to orbital periods of the Moon and planets, e.g. x-coord 2 is 2 cycles in 4096 weeks which is one cycle in 2048 weeks which is a period of 39.38 years or 14,385 days.
Some of these may also relate to the periodicities resulting from the Short-term orbital forcing described in Cionco, R. G., and Soon,W. W.-H.[ Ref. 3 ].
Conclusion:
The major influence on the rate of generation of atmospheric CO2 in the Equatorial zone has been the El Niño event, that is, climate change causing a change in the rate of generation of CO2, the complete opposite to the UN IPCC claim that CO2 causes climate change. As far as is known, no physical process has been proposed whereby the CO2 change could cause an El Niño event.
Furthermore it is notable that both the synodic and draconic periods of the Moon are apparent throughout the 62 year weekly series. An explanation for the synodic period is that each New Moon reduces the incoming Sun’s radiation to the Earth and its atmosphere as it passes between the Sun and the Earth. Similar temperature minima must occur when Mercury and/or Venus pass between the Sun and the Earth.
The draconic period is due to the Moon’s elliptical plane being at an angle of 5.14° to the Earth’s elliptic relative to the Sun. As a result, when the Moon passes through one of the two nodal points, where the Moon’s ellipse intersects the Earth’s elliptic, it has the greatest influence in diminishing the irradiation of the Earth which, in turn, reduces the Earth’s surface temperature thereby causing a response in the rate of generation of CO2.
Except during a Solar eclipse when the drop in temperature is marked, the passing of the Moon through its nodal points may only causes a minor drop in temperature. In spite of this, there is a measurable effect on the rate of change of CO2 concentration apparent in the amplitude spectrum implying a significant sensitivity between temperature and CO2 rate of change. This action appears to have been completely overlooked by the UN IPCC in their assessment of the forces generating the Earth’s climate.
As a number of the spectral maxima approximately correspond with the synodic periods of the Moon and the planets, the results are interpreted as showing that the Sun’s irradiance of the Earth is modulated by the movement of the Moon and planets. This must cause corresponding changes in the Earth’s atmospheric temperature which, in turn, has caused changes in the CO2 concentration. This is contrary to the never-proven claim by the UN IPCC that increased CO2 concentration causes an increase in the Earth’s atmospheric temperature.
The IPCC First Assessment Report, 1990, consists of this IPCC Overview, quote:
This Overview reflects the conclusions of the reports of (i) the three IPCC Working Groups on science, impacts, and response strategies, and (ii) the Policymaker Summaries of the IPCC Working Groups and the IPCC Special Committee on the Participation of Developing Countries.
- Science
This section is structured similarly to the Policymaker Summary of Working Group I.
1.0.1 We are certain of the following:
- There is a natural greenhouse effect which already keeps the Earth warmer than it would otherwise be.
- Emissions resulting from human activities are substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, chloro-fluorocarbons (CFCs) and nitrous oxide. These increases will enhance the greenhouse effect, resulting on average in an additional warming of the Earth’s surface. The main greenhouse gas, water vapour, will increase in response to global warming and further enhance it.
End quote.
Both of the above claims appear to have no scientific basis. The first claim is shown to be untenable in the opening page of this web site, entitled “Greenhouse Effect”. The second claim is also untenable as no could know, to this day, all of the possible sources and sinks for the Earth’s atmospheric CO2. To claim that “Emissions resulting from human activities are substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations …” is at odds with the most recent measurements from the Mauna Loa Observatory. For the first 12 days of August 2020, the concentration was on average 2.56 ppm greater than for August 2019.
References:
File: weekly_in_situ_co2_mlo.csv for the period 29 March 1958 to 30 May 2020 plus weekly averages of daily data from Twitter at https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/ for June, July, August 2020.
- Oceanic Nino Index, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/detrend.nino34.ascii.txt
- Cionco and Soon, Short-term orbital forcing: A quasi-review and a reappraisal of realistic boundary conditions for climate modeling, Earth-Science Reviews 166 (2017) 206-222, Elsevier B.V.
About the author: Bevan Dockery, B.Sc.(Hons), Grad. Dip. Computing, retired geophysicist, formerly: Fellow of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists, Member of the Australian Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Member of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Member of the European Association of Exploration Geophysicists, Member of the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy.
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Piet De Pauw
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Correct data analysis. But the measurement data cannot be used to reject the IPCC claims:”There is a natural greenhouse effect which already keeps the Earth warmer than it would otherwise be.
Emissions resulting from human activities are substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, chloro-fluorocarbons (CFCs) and nitrous oxide. ”
This is a non sequitur. Why? because amount of sunlight and the temperature directly influence the activity of the vegetation (growth rate of the vegetation). Since this is possible, the data of Mr, Dockery cannot be used to rule out the IPCC hypothesis. In order to displrove the IPCC hypothesisi dofferent methods can be used. One of them is the direct measurement of the long wavelength back radiation to the ground.
We can use the direct CO2 DLR (Downward Long wavelength Radiation) measurements to calculate the climate sensitivity of CO2 i.e. the influence of CO2 on the average (all places all times) earth’s surface temperature when the CO2 concentration doubles from 300 ppmv to 600 ppmv.
Result:
DLR increases with 0.2 W/m2 for a 22 ppm increase in CO2 level.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14240.pdf
or
https://escholarship.org/content/qt3428v1r6/qt3428v1r6_noSplash_b5903aebfe105b4071103e11197138f8.pdf
Since the DLR measurements were done at clear sky and the absorption by the water in the air has been added, we need to correct the figures for average water content under clear sky in the absorption band of CO2 (21.2%) AND the average cloud coverage of the earth (14%).
This results in an additional DLR of 0.2 W/m2 x 300 ppmv/22ppmv x (1-21.2%) x (1-14%) = 1.85 W/m2.
Then we add the resultant figure to the black body radiation of a black body at 15C i.e. the current average (all places all times) earth’s temperature: 390 W/m2 ( using Stefan–Boltzmann law E = sigmaT4 for 15C surface temp ) + 1.85 W/m2
=> using Stefan–Boltzmann law E = sigmaT4 we then obtain an average earth’s (all places all times) of 15.4 C. i.e. 0.4C temperature increase.
This means a doubling of the CO2 concentration of 300 pmmv to 600 pmmv, gives rise to an increase of the average earth’s temperature on earth from 15.0C at CO2 300 ppmv to 15.4C at CO2 600 ppmv. i.e. this is negligibly small.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Piet,
CO2 is completely irrelevant to the climate. The problem is that the believers think that because the O2 and N2 in the atmosphere don’t absorb visible light they are not absorbing energy from the sun and are being heated by the Earth’s surface. Unmitigated garbage. All objects absorb radiated energy and the O2 and N2 in the atmosphere are absorbing the shorter more energetic x-rays and uv emitted by the sun. Just as the universal gas law shows the greater the altitude the greater the kinetic energy of the molecules. If you read my article in PSI “On the Physics of Climate Change” it proves that the greenhouse effect and theory violate the laws of thermodynamics.
Herb
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Zoe Phin
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The IPCC hypothesis can definitely be ruled out.
http://phzoe.com/2019/11/11/why-up-is-not-down/
http://phzoe.com/2019/12/25/why-is-venus-so-hot/
http://phzoe.com/2020/03/11/40-years-of-climate-change/
But if you like the post hoc fallacy, do go with IPCC.
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TL Winslow
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[[DLR increases with 0.2 W/m2 for a 22 ppm increase in CO2 level.]]
How long will the IPCC CO2 hoaxers keep distracting us with their search for a pony in the manure?
Read my lips: CO2’s absorption/wavelength of 15 microns has a Planck radiation temperature of -80C, which is way too cold to be considered as heat. It can’t melt an ice cube. The Earth’s surface temperature range of -50C to +50C is completely missed by it. CO2 doesn’t absorb heat, and doesn’t emit it. The wattage is irrelevant. A gigantic floating berg of dry ice would emit way more 15 micron wattage than the atmosphere does, and I’m not worried about global warming from it.
http://www.historyscoper.com/thebiglieaboutco2.html
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J Cuttance
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So, what you’re saying is that the increase in CO2 could only possibly increase the temperature of something that’s -80 celcius…?
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Herb Rose
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Hi J,
T.L. Soooslow doesn’t understand how energy is transferred. Any moving object with electrical fields (all objects) will disturb the surrounding electromagnetic field either absorbing energy from the field or transferring energy to it. The atoms forming a molecule will produce or absorb a wavelength based on their bond lengths (internal energy) while the molecule as a whole will radiate or absorb a different wavelength depending on its velocity. The internal energy absorbed will be converted to energy of the whole molecule during collisions resulting in objects converting shorter wavelengths into longer wavelengths. (In the upper atmosphere where collisions are rare the oxygen atoms of an O2 molecule will absorb enough internal energy to overcome the bond energy causing the molecule to split into atoms.) Whether an object.absorbs or radiates energy depends on the amplitude of its wave compared to the amplitude of that wave in the electromagnetic field. (Comparable to whether a surfer rides a wave or sinks in the water.) So while the carbon-oxygen bond of CO2 may absorb a 15 micron wavelength it has nothing to do with the energy of the molecule as a whole.
Herb
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TL Winslow
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HR: If you only had one chance to get it right your pass expired long ago.
If you can’t understand Nature’s fundamental Planck Radiation Law by now, you never will.
Jerry Krause
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Hi TL,
Looked at your website. I have one comment and one question.
I cannot remember you commenting to one of my essays here at PSI. But thanks very much for drawing my attention to it. Maybe you have done this before and I just did not follow-up.
My question has two parts. First, is it true that you have not commented to one of my PSI comments? Second, if you haven’t, why not?
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Tl,
At your link, you have written: “There actually is a real greenhouse warming effect, with ground fog at night, which blocks convection and radiation from the surface and slows cooling. But it never raises the surface temperature, and when the Sun rises the fog dissipates, and it’s rare, so it’s weather not climate, plus it has nothing to do with so-called greenhouse gases, unless you call water vapor a greenhouse gas, which is fraught with problems because it’s more buoyant than dry air and the net result is cloud formation and precipitation in the frigid air zone, cooling the Earth’s surface way more than the Sun warmed it.”
Totally agree with this. Now my question is: Why all the other words I find at at your link? It seems to me that you have identified the fundamental mechanism which controls the Earth’s time. But it seems this fundamental mechanism gets lost in all the other words you have written.
I am slowly learning to be ‘brief’ as taught by John O’Sullivan. And some time ago I read that A. Einstein stated: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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Hi TL,
When you wrote: “the net result is cloud formation and precipitation in the frigid air zone, cooling the Earth’s surface way more than the Sun warmed it.”, I consider you should have drawn attention to the measured fact that the Earth’s atmosphere’s temperature, at any attitude, has nerve been measure3d below its measured ‘dew point temperature’.
For science is solely based upon reproducible observations and valid quantitative measurements.
Have a good day, Jerry.
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Bevan Dockery
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Piet De Pauw, my concluding remark regarding the IPCC claim of a natural greenhouse effect was made on the understanding that they had no hard evidence of such an effect and based their claim on the fictitious 33̊C Greenhouse Effect derived from a totally inappropriate model of the Earth.
Regarding your use of the Stefan-Boltzmann law, I suggest that this is invalid as the Earth’s surface, possibly, never achieves thermodynamic equilibrium but is continuously changing so the temperature does not reach that predicted by the Stefan-Boltzmann law. For example in mid-year when the Earth’s Equatorial plane aligns with the Sun, the spot on that circumference receiving the total Sun’s radiation is moving along the circumference at 1674 km/hr so there is nowhere near enough time for the spot to reach the Stefan-Boltzmann temperature related to the incoming Watts/sq.m.
There are about 300 CO2 recording stations around the World and few, if any, record coincident temperature. This has allowed climate ‘scientists’ to use the Stefan-Boltzmann law unquestioned by actual measured temperatures and thereby always exaggerate the supposed temperature. They even ‘adjust’ historic temperature records occasionally to give them their pre-conceived result.
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MattH
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67 percent
One study based on nearly a decade of satellite data estimated that about 67 percent of Earth’s surface is typically covered by clouds. This is especially the case over the oceans, where other research shows less than 10 percent of the sky is completely clear of clouds at any one time.
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Brian James
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Apr 26, 2016 Rising CO2 Levels Greening Earth by NASA Goddard
From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States.
https://youtu.be/zOwHT8yS1XI
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Koen Vogel
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Hi Bevan,
A very interesting analysis; these types of articles are the reason I keep reading PSI news. Nonetheless some comments:
1) The ACF does show cyclicty, but the maxima at 0.1-0.2 are not very high (though remain steady over time). If this cyclicity is due to El Nino events, then I would interpret this to mean that a small but steady amount of the CO2 variability correlates to El Nino events. This analysis in itself does not rule out other factors contributing to the overall CO2 increase. Your analysis is performed on de-trended data, and constructed to examine ACF cyclicity, so in itself does not consider the factors causing the observed multi-decadal (increasing) trend in the absolute CO2 levels.It does suggest that the “El Nino effect” remains fairly constant over the last decades, irregardless of overall increasing CO2 levels. It would also be instructive to see the PACF’s of the de-trended data.
2) Your comments on the Covid crisis and its effects are well-made, but there may be a lag between the lower anthropogenic production and the Mauna Loa observations.
3) Correlation does not equal causation. Your hypothesis on the mechanism whereby El Nino events influence CO2 concentrations seems feasible, but both may be varying as the result of a third factor. I find it somewhat suspicious that over the years all events seem to have a similar impact. If your hypothesis is correct, then CO2 fluctuations are likely due to plankton fluctuations (as land plant fluctuations are probably to variable and probably have a significant lag), so maybe plankton biomass fluctuations in the Pacific is an avenue to pursue?
4) The analysis seems applicable to the Pacific, so I wonder if similar effects are observed at other measurement stations, i.e. if there’s a time lag before the regional Pacific CO2 variability is observed elsewhere.
Thanks!
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Herb Rose
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Hi Koen,
The solubility of CO2 in water decreases with increasing temperature so the rise in CO2 levels from El Nino may just be the result of the rising temperature of the water around the observatory and the resulting degassing.
Herb
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