MY CLIMATE BUZZ

“The evidence suggests that CO2 forcing is proportional to the logarithm of concentration. But since the trend in CO2 increase is definitely accelerating, the trend in CO2 forcing is actually rising faster than linearly.”

One of his readers responded with:

I think the following graph of the mean annual growth rate of co2 at Mauna Loa does not support your premise. Ignore the 2008 value as it is not confirmed yet.

http://penoflight.com/climatebuzz/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/CO2NewGraph1.jpg

And Tomino added his response:

[Response: You're mistaken. In fact the graph you link to shows an upward trend in the growth rate, which indicates an accelerating trend of CO2 concentration. Yes I've run the numbers, yes CO2 growth has accelerated, and yes it's statistically significant.]

This is the graph they refer to…

THIS IMAGE: is the edited version to reflect corrections made in Mauna Loa’s 2008 data.

I don’t see the increasing rate referred to by Tomino. I do see where a couple of years (1988 and 1998) spiked… but they were followed by an immediate drop. Those spikes interested me. Something changed in the way that nature, the atmosphere, was responding to total emissions (natural and anthropogenic) of CO2. Then I got to wondering if there was also a change in trend attached to that phenomena. Since 1988 was an anomaly I graphed 1959 to 1988 and then 1988 to 2008 (OK.. 2008 is not official yet).

THIS IMAGE: is the edited version to reflect corrections made in Mauna Loa’s 2008 data.

 In the above graphs I see that the rate of increase from 1988 to 2008 is LESS than the rate from 1959 to 1988. An INCREASE in rate is not present. On average more CO2 is being added to the atmosphere from 1988 to 2008 but the rate of increase is not rising as much as in the past. No acceleration in the rate.

Then, feeling guilty about including 2008 I removed it when I graphed from the next anomaly… 1998. The graph below shows the rate of increase in annual additions to the atmosphere since 1998.

THIS IMAGE: is the edited version to reflect corrections made in Mauna Loa’s 2008 data.

As you can see…. the trend is almost flat lined at 2 PPM per year. NO increase in the rate which CO2 is being added to the atmosphere.  In Tomino’s words…. yes it’s statistically significant !

I am EDITING to add one more image for the fun of it…

I must add the caveat that the above is only for Mauna Loa and not global mean. However, it still reflects a change and there is a reason for that change.

EDIT:
I decided to be fair and did a graph on the 1998 – 2008 trend using the Global Mean data:

NOPE…. no great increase in the rate of additions of CO2 to the atmosphere.

EDIT: again

I am getting ‘noise’ elsewhere that the decrease in rate of annual additions of CO2 is nothing but ‘noise’ in the data, error, it does not exist, does not mean anything, etc.  So what if I look at the ‘long-term’ trends and not worry about the 1998 to 2008 trend? I graphed 1959 to 1988. (red and red trend line). I graphed 1959 to 2008 (red and blue combined with blue trend line). The earlier rate of increase to annual CO2 additions did not sustain. The rate of increase to additions decreased.

 
Click HERE for full sized image.

Addressing the “noise” issue. Essentially I was being told that the short-term trend from 1998 to 2008 was invalid because any amount of variation was inside the parameters of the monthly noise level in raw CO2 data.

But it looks like you’re another one of those who doesn’t believe in the existence of noise, or doesn’t understand its effect on trend analysis, or both. That must be why you have this mistaken notion that you can fit a line to the “current” data and declare what the “current” trend is.

My trend line for that period was just about flat at 2.0 PPM annual addition. In response to a letter from Anthony Watts regarding the July 2008 data (10 days) Pieter Tans wrote:

The annual increase has averaged about 2 ppm per year recently, which equals 0.17 per month. The “noise” in monthly data is larger than that.

Two points;

1) The data released by MLO is corrected (filtered) data. Error due to noise is thus supposedly negligible in the released data; otherwise the data would be meaningless. I guess the MOL data is only valid when used in an IPCC report. Apparently it is invalid when used by anyone else.

2) Pieter Tans’ comment essentially confirms my trend line for 1998 – 2008. Flat at about 2.0 PPM annually.