As the temperature of the oceans rise, the amount of dissolved CO2 they can retain decreases.
Decrease the temperature of the oceans, and they absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.
You can even see it in microcosm, as the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere fluctuates annually with the seasons:
During Earth’s Ordovician Period (488.3–443.7 million years ago), the average CO2 level was 4200 ppm(15 times pre-industrial level) and the average temperature was 2deg C higher than today. During that time, Earth had ice caps on the poles and glaciers in the mountains. Just like today.
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Anthony:
Thankyou for linking to a contribution from Roy Spencer at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/25/double-whammy-friday-roy-spencer-on-how-oceans-are-driving-co2/
As you say, both his ‘CO2 papers’ on WUWT are pertinent and worthy of a revisit by all considering the work of Salby.
In the thread at the link I post above, I posted a brief outline of some of our findings which directly contradict the Team mantra that “We know human activities are increasing the CO2 in the air.” To save people the trouble of finding that comment, I copy it here.
Richard S Courtney says:
January 25, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Dr Spencer’s article reaches similar conclusions to those in
Rorsch A, Courtney RS & Thoenes D, ‘The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle’ E&E v16no2 (2005).
I expanded on that paper in a presentation at a climate conference held in Stockholm on 11 & 12 September 2006. I could provide Dr Spencer with a copy of it were he to contact me.
There are some surprising similarities between Dr Spencer’s article and my presentation. For example, his Figure 3 presents the same data in the same way as my Figure 1, and he draws the same conclusion from it as we do in our paper.
Importantly, our paper provides six models that each match the empirical data.
We provide three basic models that each assumes a different mechanism dominates the carbon cycle. The first basic model uses a postulated linear relationship of the sink flow and the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. The second used uses a power equation that assumes several different processes determine the flow into the sinks. And the third model assumes that the carbon cycle is dominated by biological effects.
For each basic model we assume the anthropogenic emission
(a) is having insignificant effect on the carbon cycle,
and
(b) is affecting the carbon cycle to induce the observed rise in the Mauna Loa data.
Thus, the total of six models is presented.
The six models do not use the ‘5-year-averaging’ to smooth the data that the IPCC model requires for it to match the data. But all of the six models match the empirical data. However, they provide very different ‘projections’ of future atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration for the same assumed future anthropogenic emission. And other models are probably also possible.
The ability to model the carbon cycle in such a variety of ways means that according to the available data
(1) the cause of the recent rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is not known,
(2) the future development of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration cannot be known, and
(3) any effect of future anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide on the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration cannot be known.
All the best
Richard