Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Haese
From what I have read CO2 rises often lags well behind a temperature rise. See link below. Lags have been shown to be anywhere from 200 to 1000 years different from temperature rise. This to my mind and a few others indicate that CO2 is not the causative effect of rising temperatures. You know the chicken and the egg thing. Since CO2 is being used as the causation for climate change and rise in temperatures, this would then seem a flawed argument of increasing CO2 = temperature rise. Maybe I have this wrong. While most of this discussion related to interglacial aspects it can also be inferred there is a corresponding relationship to now.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-...emperature.htm
That set of graphs on NASA show a flattening on the sea surface temp anomalies for the last 8 or so years. Yes the temps rose sharply for 30 years then flattened from 2000.
I stand corrected about the volcanic output. |
I thought that was what you were refering to. Interesting but not relevant to the current situation. It is true that the Milankovich hypothesis has the current series of glacial/interclacials driven by changes in the Earth's orbital parameters. The correlation between orbital parameters and the temperature record over the last ca. 2.5Ma is so good that the issues we still have in understanding the mechanism are seen as an oportunity for further research rather than a reason to doubt the overall hypothesis.
Now, in a natural situation CO2 cannot be a primary driver of climate because the concentration of CO2 in the atm. does not change of its own accord. Orbital parameters do. So it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that temperatures first rise a bit which degasses the oceans a bit, thus increasing atmospheric CO2 which then pushes temperatures up a bit more. If CO2 did not provide this positive feedback the difference between glacial and interglacial temperature could not be as large as it is. Also remember that the lag being discussed is between the naturally-initiated temperature rise and the rise in CO2 conc. It is not a delay between the release of the CO2 and it's radiative forcing, which begins immediately (though the forcing may need to occur for some time before its effect can be clearly seen from the climate 'noise').
Of course the point is that we are no longer in a natural situation. Suddenly releasing carbon that has been sequestered over geological time has changed the situation.