Global warming spatial inequality (land warming much faster than sea since 1985) incriminates soot from burning coal, exonerates CO2

Abstract

Poster presented at EGU General Assembly, Vienna, April 2023. Until as recently as 2022 I was an 'AGW denier' (as opposed to a 'warming denier'). Further research has forced me to change my mind; that's the nature of science. Scroll down to view and/or download the abstract, plus two provisional slides. For the poster, go to 'Linked data'. If I'm right that the villain is man-made airborne soot, not CO2, then: (1) 'carbon capture' is a gigantic waste of trillions of dollars AND it amounts to 'shooting ourselves in the foot' spectacularly, as today's 420ppm CO2 is still far below the ~1,000ppm optimum for crop- and forest growth; and (2) to avoid further man-made warming, rapid transition from oil and coal to nuclear energy is urgently needed (wind and solar are far too unreliable and land-hungry), and far less squandering of energy at the personal level (e.g. rampant consumerism; multiple automobiles, houses and foreign holidays per family; year-round air-freighted exotic fruits; etc., etc.). For the imminent, unstoppable, multi-metre sea-level rise due to ongoing man-made (soot-driven) warming, see my subsequent (2024) presentation, 'British archaeology verifies 5th-Century rapid multi-metre sea-level rise and portends another before 2100', at the same EGU Vienna conference, available here on ResearchGate ... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373523744

Full text

14/03/2024, 10:02
Abstract EGU23-1416
https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU23/EGU23-1416.html
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Global land-surface warming much faster than ocean surface, and Northern Hemisphere faster than Southern: incriminates soot
from burning oil and coal, exonerates CO2
Fossil-fuel combustion now outweighs solar variations in driving climate change (Higgs 2022, GSA, www.researchgate.net/publication/362103181). Remarkably, land (near-
surface-air) warming is three times faster than ocean-surface warming, and Northern Hemisphere (NH; land-ocean average) three times Southern. This aberrant behavior
began abruptly in 1985 (contrast pre-1985 lockstep warming-cooling; data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v4). Moreover, over land and over the NH, warming is signicantly
slower at altitude (UAH satellite-measured lower-troposphere average temperature).
These strong lateral- and vertical warming gradients incriminate airborne soot (warms atmosphere by absorbing solar radiation). Soot’s poor dispersal causes strong
concentration gradients, both (A) laterally, toward its main sources, which are
predominantly on-land and NH
(diesel engines, cooking woodres, coal-red
powerplants/industries), e.g. over intensely industrialized nations (USA, Europe, China, etc.), average atmospheric soot concentration is ~1000% (i.e. 10 times) greater than
over adjacent oceans (NASA 2011 global black carbon video https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3844), starkly contrasting with CO2’s 1% dierence (NASA global CO2 video); and (B)
vertically, e.g. year-round average soot concentration above rural Siberia is ~500% higher at 0.5km than at 3km (doi: 10.3390/atmos12030351), far exceeding CO2’s 4%
dierence above Tokyo (10.3390/s18114064).
Two further observations implicate
diesel-
and
coal
-sourced soot specically. Firstly, 25 years (y) before the 1985 decouplings (above), world annual oil consumption tripled
in 1960, then remained high almost continuously (OurWorldinData, GlobalPrimaryEnergyConsumptionBySource graph). Secondly, coal’s distinctively stepwise growth (same
graph) is mimicked, with a similar time-lag (10-20y), by stepwise land-air warming (data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v4): COAL GROWTH fast 1974-1989 (tripled in 1974,
due to 1973 oil crisis), nil 1989-1999, fast 1999-2014 (mainly China; OurWorldinData, CoalConsumptionByRegion graph); LAND WARMING fast 1994-2005, nil 2005-2011
(famed ‘hiatus’), fast since 2011.
CO2 cannot explain the observed strong lateral and vertical warming gradients, because its ecient dispersal produces near-homogenous atmospheric concentration. Even
heavily industrial regions barely (<0.5%) exceed the global average (10.1038/s41598-019-53513-7). Furthermore, no leap in CO2 concentration occurred ~1985 or any other
time; instead, CO2 grew by gradual acceleration, not stepwise (keelingcurve.ucsd.edu). Evidently, CO2 has negligible eect on climate, implying that its greenhouse eect is
nullied by unknown and/or underestimated feedbacks (e.g. 10.1007/978-94-007-6606-8_17). If so, hyper-expensive CO2 capture is misconceived, besides counter-
productive (today’s 420ppm is well below ~1,000ppm optimum for crop- and forest growth).
In the literature, the global-warming contribution of soot (‘black carbon’) is very uncertain. According to an inuential review (10.1002/jgrd.50171;
italic
emphasis added
here): “The best
estimate
of industrial-era climate forcing of black carbon ... is +1.1 W m with 90%
uncertainty bounds of +0.17 to +2.1 W m
(sic) ... We
estimate
that black
carbon ... is the second most important human emission in terms of its climate forcing”. Black carbon’s warming eect was
estimated
to be 70% as strong as CO2. Recent
IPCC estimates are 35% and 12% (2013, Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policymakers, g.SPM.5; 2021, ditto, g.SPM.2c). On the contrary, the data presented above
suggest black carbon is overwhelmingly the dominant anthropogenic-warming agent. Helping to explain previous underestimates, two additional soot-induced warming
mechanisms, via its eects on clouds, were recently recognised (10.1038/s41561-020-0631-0). Moreover, developing-world powerplants possibly emit
far
more soot
(10.1029/1999JD900187) than the review
assumed
.
How to cite: Higgs, R.: Global land-surface warming much faster than ocean surface, and Northern Hemisphere faster than Southern: incriminates soot from burning oil and
coal, exonerates CO2, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-1416, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-1416, 2023.
  
EGU23-1416, updated on 22 Feb 2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-1416
EGU General Assembly 2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Roger Higgs
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