About those errors in the climate change Mauna Loa “gold standard”

NOAA CO2 data from 2021 are not yet finalized as I write this.  According to NOAA for 2020, net CO2 from all sources and sinks, human and natural, on average increased only 2.58 ppm for the year 2020.  That is only 0.000258% of the atmosphere and it includes all CO2 from all sources and sinks, natural and human. 

In other words, human-produced CO2 emitted to the atmosphere, minus human-produced CO2 absorbed by the environment, DID NOT EXCEED a 0.000258% increase for 2020. 

Total CO2 concentration measured at Mauna Loa (MLO) was 414.24 ppm. (That’s the annual mean for MLO in 2020, minus annual mean for MLO in 2019.  414.24 ppm, minus 411.66 ppm equals 2.58 ppm.)

Then 2.58 ppm divided by 414.24 ppm is 0.0062 or 0.6%. 

This means, the annual increase in total CO2, for 2020, is only 0.6% of the total CO2 in air, and this 0.6% percent increase includes CO2 from all sources and sinks, natural and human. 

In other words, the net increase of CO2, for 2020, due to humans is likely much less than 0.6% of the total CO2 in air.

NOAA, etc. writes statements such as:

“From 2000 through 2018, CO2 emissions to the atmosphere from burning of fossil fuels rose from 6.7 PgC yr ^–1 to 10.2 PgC yr^-1 (1 petagram of carbon is 10¹⁵ gC, or 1 billion metric tons C, or 3.67 billion metric tons CO2).

Global fossil fuel emissions have increased steadily, year upon year, with the exception of 2009 following the global economic recession and 2014-2016, when emissions held nearly constant (Figure 1).”  https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/carbontracker/index.php#north_america

NOAA and global warming proponents typically neglect to inform the reader, CO2 added to the air in excess of the Henry’s Law partition ratio is absorbed by the environment. 

They also neglect to inform, the MLO-measured-and-reported CO2 concentration, the de facto “gold standard”, is in fact the residual difference between two very much larger natural CO2 fluxes, total CO2 emission flux and total CO2 absorption flux. 

The apparent annual increase (i.e., the MLO rate of change of net global CO2 atmospheric concentration, aka the Keeling Curve slope) cannot be caused by humans, as shown below. 

Near the bottom of the same page linked above, NOAA informs the reader of important uncertainties in their estimate of CO2 emission flux, including that it contains guesswork.  This may be the most useful information on that website. 

There are many natural sources of CO2, and many natural sinks for CO2.

Both are orders of magnitude larger than human CO2 emissions. 

In the real world, the net global average CO2 concentration in air (and even more so, the net human CO2 emission) cannot be distinguished from noise in the measurement system. 

In the real world, away from subjective computer models, atmospheric CO2 concentration is determined by nature,and humans can neither increase it or decrease it, except as a temporary perturbation.

Major problems with CO2 measurements are:

They ignore the variability of both CO2 and air in the natural environment. 

Mauna Loa (MLO) is essentially a lab environment; its measurements are diligently made, accurate and precise for that lab location.  The unit they use is ppm, that is CO2 parts/million parts of air. 

As measured by NOAA, it is micro-moles of CO2 gas per mole of dried air, which is the same as ppm. 

But, it (ppm) is a ratio of masses, not a volume measurement. 

Thus, there are at least two major problems in the “gold standard” MLO measurement of net global average CO2 atmospheric concentration, as commonly, and repeatedly reported worldwide. 

1) MLO removed a huge environmental variability in CO2 data by removing water and water vapor from the sample. 

If a sample is taken during cloudy conditions, it contains air saturated with water vapor and tiny water droplets

Depending on the temperature, there would be about 20,000 to 30,000 ppm of water vapor, which, by itself, is a strong green house gas

CO2 gas is highly absorbed by water.

The percentage of tiny water droplets and water vapor in air is more than (25,000/414 = 60 times greater than of CO2 in air

The humidity of air is highly variable, and dependent on ambient temperature 

If MLO did not remove water from the air samples, the variability in the data would be so large, it would prevent measurement of CO2.

For this reason, they use a molar mass measurement (ppm) instead of a volume measurement, such as micrograms CO2 per liter of air (or ppmv).

NOTE: ppm and ppmv are not equivalent units.

2) Estimates of the mass of the atmosphere vary tremendously. 

The denominator, in ppm, is mass of the atmosphere or portions thereof. 

This mass is highly variable, but this uncertainty is almost never propagated to the ppm ratio. 

This second problem is a partial derivative of the first problem above, but also there are additional variables.

Global warming proponents Kevin E. Trenberth and Christian J. Guillemot (1994) state in The total mass of the atmosphere: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/94JD02043

“Thus the mean mass of water vapor is 1.25×10¹⁶ kg and the dry air mass is 5.132×10¹⁸ kg, corresponding to a mean surface pressure of 982.4 mbar. Overall uncertainties are ∼0.1 mbar or 0.5×10¹⁵ kg in total mass and about double those values for atmospheric moisture content.” 

These global warming proponents point out that the mass variability is high for dry air, but variability of moisture content is about double of that mass variability.

So, according to this estimate by Trenberth and Guillemot, 1994, the atmosphere contains about 5.132 X 10¹⁸ kilograms of dry air, which is 5.132 X 10²¹ grams of dry air. 

Then 3.9 X 10^-6 grams of CO2 (the annual increase per gram of dry air) multiplied times the estimated 5.132 X 10²¹ grams of dry air in the total atmosphere results in an estimated increase in the atmosphere of 2.0 X 10¹⁶ grams of CO2 for 2019-2020, due to all sources and sinks, natural and human. 

Sounds like a big, scary increase.  But wait, there is more that is rarely if ever mentioned.

Thus we have 2.0 X 10¹⁶ grams of CO2 added to the atmosphere, from all sources natural and human, which are diluted, immediately and continuously, into 2 natural, continuous, opposite vector-directional fluxes of CO2. 

One flux is CO2 absorbed into the environment, primarily into ocean surface, which is 71% of earth’s surface. 

The other flux is CO2 emission flux, primarily from ocean surface. 

CO2 gas is always, continuously colliding with earth’s surface, thus always being simultaneously emitted and absorbed at all normal earth temperatures. 

Although, we do not precisely know the size of these two continuous CO2 vector fluxes, the MLO-measurement (i.e., the Keeling Curve) is the record of the rate of change of the net annual difference between these two giant fluxes, i.e., 2.0 X 10¹⁶ grams of CO2 per year for 2019-2020, which is the slope of the Keeling curve expressed in grams of CO2 per year for 2019 - 2020

The above “Keeling Curve” would appear flat (as in the graph further above), if the left hand axis represented the whole atmosphere instead of 0.01% of the atmosphere.

Notice, for the estimated mass of the atmosphere (5.132 X 10²¹ grams of dry air), the net annual increase in CO2 (i.e., the MLO-measured net annual difference between the two fluxes, or 2.0 X 10¹⁶ grams of CO2 for the year for 2019-2020) is more than 5 times larger than the estimated average annual fossil fuel CO2 emissions (3.67 X 10¹⁵ grams of fossil fuel CO2 emissions for 2000 through 2018, per above reference). 

This is CO2 fossil fuel emissions only, not net emissions. 

Net emissions is emissions, minus absorption

Net CO2 fossil-fuel emissions would be about half of the estimated 3.67 X 10¹⁵grams of average annual fossil fuel CO2 emissions. 

The two growth curves are diverging over time. 

Therefore, it is not scientifically plausible, CO2 emissions from humans burning fossil-fuels are causing the slope of the Keeling curve, i.e. the net increase in global CO2 atmospheric concentration. 

The very slowly increasing slope of (a) the “gold standard” measured global CO2 atmospheric concentration (i.e. the NOAA-Scripps Institute lab at Mauna Loa) cannot be caused by (b) the increasing slope of estimated CO2 emissions from fossil fuels combustion, because the slope of (b) is less than (a), when (b) and (a) are on the same scale. The a and b sloped lines are diverging with respect to time. There are no exceptions.

Also notice, for the estimated mass of the atmosphere (5.132 X 10²¹ grams of dry air), the estimated uncertainty is 0.5 X 10¹⁸ grams, (i.e., 0.5×10¹⁵ kg from the above reference Trenberth and Guillemot, 1994). 

The uncertainty in the denominator of ppm (i.e., 0.5 X 10¹⁸ grams) is about 25 times greater than the numerator (2.0 X 10¹⁶ grams) AND this large uncertainty has not been propagated to the resulting ppm ratio. 

In other words, the ~414 ppm measurement, although precisely measured in the lab sample, is highly uncertain in the real world; it does not represent the high variability of CO2 concentration in normal atmosphere. 

With an uncertainty (or standard deviation) which is 25 times larger than the measured CO2 sample amount, it is highly improbable, the ~400 ppm signal could be distinguished from noise in a sufficiently powered sampling of the natural environment.   

Here is a reference on propagation of uncertainty: 

https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Analytical_Chemistry/Supple...