CO2 airbourne fraction

Posted by William M. Connolley on September 5, 2006
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http://www.gci.org.uk/briefings/rising_risk.pdf asserts that the “airbourne fraction” of CO2 is coming up to 100%, having been 50%: The point of great concern here is that over the last couple few years 2003/4/5 the rate of increase has jumped to nearer 3 ppmv per annum. This gives a loading of the atmosphere by weight that is roughly equal to not half but all the emissions from fossil fuel burning.

As far as I can see this is wrong. In 2003/4 growth rates were 2+ ppmv and heading downwards.

But the main point of this post was to inquire if anyone knows where the 2005 data is hiding. I can only find up to the end of 2004 (http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/co2/maunaloa.co2 via http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/trends/co2/sio-mlo.htm ).

[Update: two people have now pointed me to http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/projects/src/web/trends/co2_mm_mlo.dat - thanks. Now to update the pic... -W]

[Update: OK, so the pic up to 2005 is:

i-a37538bd60b90526822b69b147f15464-co2-rise.png which is trending upwards somewhat, but not to any very exciting degree - the black mean line in the top pic is somewhat above the 20 year trend, but not by any huge amount -W]

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  1. #1 Adam
    2006/09/05

    I’m not sure if this is it as the figures aren’t quite the same, but:

    http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/projects/src/web/trends/co2_mm_mlo.dat

    from

    http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

    may do?

  2. #2 John l. McCormick
    2006/09/05

    William, try this link:

    http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/

    It will take you to the current MLO data and global data. Scroll down to find the actual 1958 to July 06 figures for MLO and global.

    And, what to make of the airborne fraction paper? No citation. Makes no sense.

  3. #3 Eli Rabett
    2006/09/05

    The magic words are the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw pact nations in the late 80s early 90s. The slope dipped then and recovered in the mid 90s esp. as China and India ramped up and the FSU/Warsaw pact nations began to recover.

  4. #4 John L. McCormick
    2006/09/05

    I’d like to see some less than magic words, in the form of a citation. William, can you offer anything in this regard?

  5. #5 hank
    2006/09/05

    Here’s a start. I found this somewhere else a few weeks ago but have been on vacation and my memory hasn’t returned …

    http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/graphics/usrb.gif
    http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/graphics/usst.gif

  7. #7 John McCormick
    2006/09/05

    Hank, I asked to see the citation (origin of William’s initial post):

    [asserts that the "airbourne fraction" of CO2 is coming up to 100%, having been 50%: ]

    I’ll wait for your memory to return from its vacation.

    [I'm a bit confused by what you want. I've provided a link to the original report. I agree that doesn't really tell you where it gets its 100% from - it claims to see it in the data, but I can't -W]

  8. #8 John McCormick
    2006/09/06

    William, I picked up the scent again. Back on the trail. Thanks. I will contact C&C to get email info of author.

  9. #9 Eli Rabett
    2006/09/06

    John Rabett Run is the blog for forcing fans. Click on the graph here to see what happened in 1989-90. You can really see the effect of the fall of the Soviet Union in the rate of growth curve for CO2. Also in N2O. CH4 and the CFCs were dominated by reductions in flaring and the Montreal Protocols

  10. #10 jre
    2006/09/06

    William -
    Would I be right to guess that you generated the plots above from the data files using an IDL script similar to this one?
    And would an IDL novice benefit from seeing the source, or should I just tinker with the one you already published?

    [The scripts are, in order:

    http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/wmc/co2.recent.pro

    and

    http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/met/wmc/co2.recent.ch.pro

    -W]