Ian Bradford: Is Carbon Dioxide the Primary Driver of Global Warming?

The current thinking by many in the scientific world is that carbon dioxide is the primary driver of global warming. Carbon dioxide is supposed to capture and radiate heat back to the earth in what is termed “radiative forcing”. The emissions of carbon dioxide coming from the consumption of fossil fuels is supposed to be fuelling the increase in average global temperature.

By measuring the annual emissions of carbon dioxide and the annual increase in the earth’s temperature it has been concluded that there is a  correlation between the two quantities. This means that using the projected consumption of fossil fuels and based on models, the increase in the earth’s average temperature can be predicted. To mitigate this temperature rise fossil fuels must be eliminated and renewable energy sources promoted instead. 

Looking back in time, plant and animal life has existed for 650 million years or more. Plants go through the process of photosynthesis to make sugars necessary for their growth. Animals depend of plants for their food source. Herbivores eat plants and carnivores eat herbivores. Plants need a minimum level of sunlight to survive.  Those which are the most demanding need exposure to full sunlight for six or more hours per day. These kinds of plants must have had sunlight that repeated annually for hundreds of millions of years.  The sun’s irradiation must be within the plant’s tolerance level otherwise the death of that kind of plant would result.

We shall look at the Paleozoic. The Paeleozoic takes in the Cambrian period to the Permian. 

Looking at the past 610 million years shows that the earth has been subjected to varying global temperatures that peak at a high temperature and then plunge to a condition which heralds an ice age. A graph of temperature against time shows turn points. The temperature can be increasing then we have a turn point and the temperature begins to fall. There is a 150 million year solar cycle. In one cycle the variability of the total solar irradiance takes the earth’s temperature from a bottom temperature to a peak temperature and back to a bottom temperature.  At each high and low  turn point the trend changes rapidly to a trend that proceeds in the opposite direction. There are a minimum of two trend changes in any one cycle.  There were 22 trend turn points in the 610 million years of the late Proterozoic and the Phanerozoic. (The Palaeozoic covers part of the Phanerozoic). 

Note that a distant time is chosen because if the properties of carbon dioxide are as they expressed to be today, then the properties should be seen to act in the same manner then.

Changes in the direction of cooling and warming trends appear to be common during the Phanerozoic and the addition of the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide ACCO2 data to the Earth’s temperature graph should show the influence the ACCO2 had on the earth’s temperature.  

The theory that CO2 is the primary driver of global warming is mooted as a physical law that must have applied since the creation of the earth.  To validate the theory that carbon dioxide is the driver of global warming the graph of the average global temperature (AGT), and the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (ACCO2),  must show that the ACCO2 is: 

1      1     The principle cause of global warming.
2      The cause that creates peak times of excessive heat and ice ages. 
3      Able to almost spontaneously become of an intensity to cause a rapid change in the progressing Global warming trend.
4      Able to spasmodically and almost spontaneously increase and decrease during a 150 million year Solar Cycle to cause the random global warming trend changes detected within the cycle. 
5      And further that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide fluctuates rapidly and significantly to cause the turn point of a 150 million year Solar Cycle at both peak and bottom global warming.
6      The theory of carbon dioxide as the driver of global warming and cooling through radiative forcing applied throughout the last 610 million years.  

The Cambrian evolution of aquatic plant life had already caused a reduction in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and that continued into the Ordovician up to the beginning of the land transformation that started about 480 million years ago. 

About 470 million years ago plants began to occupy the shorelines of the land. The first land plants did not have a vascular water transport system and were dependent on having their feet constantly wet. They had no predators on land, and so quickly spread about the world where suitable wetlands existed. During the time highlighted in the area  on the left hand side of the graph there was considerable tectonic activity. Land was up-lifted and as the wetlands changed to dry the new plant life died out.  While this was happening a global temperature turn point began a cooling trend, that took the AGT to the low of the Andean –Saharan Ice Age.  

The concentration of carbon dioxide is the red line and the blue line is the average global temperature. 

THE DECLINE IN THE AVERAGE GLOBAL TEMPERATURE, THE INCREASE IN THE ATMOSPHERIC CONCENTRATION OF CARBON DIOXIDE, THE COMING AND GOING OF AN ICE AGE AND THE MASS EXTINCTION EVENT ALL HAPPENED WHILE THE ATMOSPHERIC CONCENTRATION OF CARBON DIOIXDE WAS MORE THAN 6 TIMES WHAT IT IS TODAY. THERE WERE NO RAPID SPORADIC REDUCTIONS OR INCREASES IN CARBON DIOXIDE THAT COULD HAVE PLUNGED THE EARTH INTO AN ICE AGE OR CAUSED THE AGT TRENDS TO TURN FROM COOLING TO WARMING. 

In the early Silurian, tectonic activity ceased. The average global temperature rebounded from the low point of the Ice Age. It took 40 million years for habitat and life to reach a position where recovery was possible. In that time, only 200ppm of carbon dioxide was added to the atmosphere. ( That’s 2300 to 2500 ppm on the graph shown in pink.)  

By about 425 million years ago vascular plants were present on earth. They did not need a constant supply of water for their feet. As they occupied more dry land they drew on the atmospheric carbon dioxide and reduced it considerably.( see the drop in the pink line from 2500 ppm to 1650 ppm).  And this reached a low in the late Silurian. Biomass increased significantly as the carbon dioxide was converted into plant life. 

A SUDDEN TURN POINT ABOUT 415 MILLION YEARS AGO, BEGAN A COOLING TREND WHILE CARBON DIOIXDE WAS STILL CLIMBING.

Trees were a robust and resilient plant life. They were not easily decomposed and were not edible by animals. They spread throughout the earth over various climate zones. The carbon dioxide the trees consumed was not returned to the atmosphere but was converted to coal gas and oil. There was a reduction of 2000ppm of carbon dioxide by trees during the late Devonian and Carboniferous Periods.    The fungal decomposition of woody matter, trees in particular, only began about 320 million years ago at the earliest.  Before this time, there was no natural process that returned carbon dioxide, consumed by these plants, to the atmosphere. By about 300million years ago fungi became very active in the decomposition of woody matter that they could reach. Oxygen needed by fungi was abundant, as it was released as waste during photosynthesis.  There was an increasing concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere from the time that trees consumed carbon dioxide for their growth until fungal decomposition became effective. This was confirmed by scientists Berner, R.A., and Schachat, S. R.  The oxygen data from their results was then put against the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. This shown in the graph below. Oxygen 1 curve is from Berner, and oxygen 2 curve is from Schachat. The carbon dioxide curve is from Nahle. Both oxygen curves show that the concentration of oxygen increased once woody plants took hold on earth, particularly when the average global temperature was below 23 Deg C. The reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide is related to the increases in the atmospheric concentration of oxygen by plant photosynthesis. 

The blue line and the orange line are oxygen, the red line is carbon dioxide. 

The Karoo Ice Age

During the 60 million years the Karoo Ice Age spanned there were three average  global temperature trend turn points. They happened when the earth  was in a state of cool climate. Looking at the graph below we see: 

1      1     The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide was declining steadily for about 90 million years beginning about 375 Million years ago. 
2      The average global temperature was also declining almost in unison with the reduction of carbon dioxide, but about 20 million years behind, until about 355 million years ago when two rapid average global temperature trend turn points reversed the relative positions  of the AGT and ACCO2 trends
3       About 346 million years ago a cooling trend began that took the average global temperature to the first low point of the Karoo Ice Age. 
4      The average global temperature began a warming trend at the turn point 315 years ago that peaked at 15.8 Deg C some 309 million years ago.    
5      A rapid change in the warming trend at the turn point 309 million years ago began a cooling trend and took the AGT to the second low point of 12.7 Deg C some 300 million years ago.
  

The blue line is temperature. Red circles show the turn points.   

NOW WHILE THE TEMPERATURE WAS PROGRESSING TO THE THREE LOW POINTS AND THE REBOUNDS TO WARMING PERIODS IN THE CARBONIFEROUS PERIOD THE ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE WAS STEADILY IN DECLINE FROM ABOUT 370 MILLION YEARS AGO UNTIL 262 MILLION YEARS AGO. 

None of the models indicate that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide spasmodically and rapidly increased or decreased in levels of sufficient significance to cause the considerable changes in the AGT trend in the very short time spans needed to cause a turn point. Further, the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide could not return to  the same levels in the late Carboniferous Period and early Permian as existed in the early Silurian Period. There was plenty of atmospheric oxygen but the carbon from carbon dioxide used for growth and as food was held fast in many forms – in coal, in fossilised wood, wood in the process of fossilisation, in methane trapped beneath the earth’s surface, in oil or in dead life forms which were being converted into oil.  

Conclusions

1      1      There was no correlation of the AGT (average global temperature) and the ACCO2 (atmospheric concentration of CO2),  during the Paleozoic.  
2      The changes in ACCO2 were caused by biomass growth. 
3      Organic decomposition of woody plant matter to return CO2 to the atmosphere began at the earliest 320 million years ago.
4      Increased oxygenation of the atmosphere increased as living plant biomass consumed CO2. Expelled oxygen, and dead woody matter (trees) were left undecomposed.  
5      The reduction in the average global warming at the time of the Andean- Saharan Ice Age cannot be explained by changes in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide as it was on an increasing volume trend.
6      The cause of the two warming trends at the Karoo Ice Age low points cannot be explained by changes in the  atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide as it was on a declining volume trend. 
7      There were no sporadic and rapid major changes in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide that could cause a turn point at any time in the Paleozoic. 

The physical properties that describe CO2 have not changed in the last 610 million years. The way they applied 610 million years ago is exactly as they apply today.  Carbon dioxide is NOT the prime mover of global warming.  

Ian Bradford, a science graduate, is a former teacher, lawyer, farmer and keen sportsman, who is writing a book about the fraud of anthropogenic climate change.