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New Paper Finds Effect of Human-Caused Carbon Emissions on Climate is “Non-Discernible”

by Chris Morrison
8 April 2024 7:00 AM

Every now and then, a giant of modern science should be allowed to express himself in language that we all understand. In the informative Climate: The Movie, the 2022 Nobel physics laureate Dr. John Clauser thundered: “I assert there is no connection whatsoever between climate change and CO2 – it’s all a crock of crap, in my opinion.” While not expressing himself in such forthright terms, the Greek scientist Professor Demetris Koutsoyiannis might agree. He recently published a paper that argues it is the recent expansion of a more productive biosphere that has led to increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere and greening of the Earth. It is widely argued that changing atmospheric carbon isotopes prove that most if not all recent warming is caused by the 4% human contribution from burning hydrocarbons, but such anthropogenic involvement is dismissed by Koutsoyiannis as “non-discernible”. Koutsoyiannis is Professor Emeritus of Hydrology and Analysis of Hydrosystems at the National Technical University of Athens.

The isotope argument has been around for some time and has been useful in closing down debate on the role of human-caused CO2 and its supposed effect in causing a ‘climate emergency’. The carbon in living matter has a slightly higher proportion of 12C isotopes, and recent lowering levels of 13C, which accounts for 99% of carbon in the atmosphere, are used to promote the idea that it is caused by burning hydrocarbons. But Koutsoyiannis argues that the more productive biosphere has resulted in “natural amplification of the carbon cycle due to increased temperature”. He suggests this may be a “primary factor for the decrease in the isotopic signature 13C in atmospheric CO2”.

Clauser’s remarks, along with contributions from a number of other distinguished scientists, have led to widespread attempts to shadow-ban Martin Durkin’s Climate: The Movie in mainstream and social media. If Clauser and scientists like Koutsoyiannis are correct, there is no need for the Net Zero global collectivisation. Trillions of dollars can be taken back from the Climate Industrial Network to be used to solve more pressing environmental and social problems. In such circles, the idea that humans control the climate thermostat is regarded as little short of pseudoscience. In the film, the former Princeton professor William Happer says he can live with the descriptive suggestion “hoax”, although he prefers the word “scam”. Disregarding the role of natural forces and promoting a 50 year-old hypothesis – science speak for ‘opinion’ – that can’t even agree on the degree of warming caused by higher levels of CO2 – holds little attraction for these sceptical science minds.

During the course of the Durkin film, the evidence mounts that the warming ‘opinion’ can’t explain any of the climate change observations seen over the last 500 million years of life on Earth. As the Daily Sceptic has noted on numerous occasions, it would help if there was at least one peer-reviewed paper that proved conclusively that humans caused all or most changes in the climate. A politically-manufactured ‘consensus’ and appeals to UN authority do not count.

Koutsoyiannis provides some of the historical background to the evolution of the isotope story, and its use to promote the ‘settled’ science narrative around CO2. The generally accepted hypothesis “may reflect a dogmatic approach or a postmodern ideological effect, i.e., to blame everything on human actions”, he observes. Hence, he says, the null hypothesis that all observed changes are mostly natural has not seriously been investigated. To add weight to his contention, Koutsoyiannis repeats the infamous claim made recently at a World Economic Forum meeting by Melissa Fleming, Under Secretary-General for Global Communications at the United Nations: “We own the science, and we think that the world should know it.”

The Koutsoyiannis paper is long and detailed and he uses data obtained from the California-based Scripps Institute that has been measuring isotopic signatures since 1978, along with proxy data going back five centuries. The complex workings can be viewed in the full paper with the author concluding that instrumental carbon isotopic data of the last 40 years shows no discernible signs of human hydrocarbon CO2 emissions. He also found that the modern record did not differ in terms of net isotopic signature of atmospheric CO2 sources and sinks from the proxy data, including Antarctica ice cores, going back 500 years.

The lack, or otherwise, of a discernible human-caused carbon isotope signature is an interesting branch of climate science to investigate, although, as we have seen, it is constrained by the political requirements governing the settled science narrative. In 2022, three physics professors led by Kenneth Skrable from the University of Massachusetts broke ranks and examined the atmospheric trail left by the isotopes. They discovered that the amount of CO2 released by hydrocarbon burning since 1750, “was much too low to be the cause of global warming”. The scientists found that claims of the dominance of anthropogenic fossil fuel in the isotope record had involved the “misuse” of statistics. They stated that the assumption that the increase in CO2 is dominated by or equal to the anthropogenic component is “not settled science”.

They warned that “unsupported conclusions” of human involvement “have severe potential societal implications that press the need for very costly remedial actions that may be misdirected, presently unnecessary and ineffective in curbing global warming”.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.

Tags: Climate AlarmismClimate EmergencyCO2Net ZeroScience

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20 Comments
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varmint
varmint
1 year ago

Chris thankyou ——-I appreciate all your hard work. This is ofcourse an interesting development.————– I have come to the conclusion though that arguing about “science” is playing into the hands of the climate establishment. While we are all busy arguing about “science”, the charlatans are getting on with what it is really all about —POLITICS. The Net Zero and Sustainable Development Politics doesn’t even depend on “science” .We are told day and night on mainstream News that the “science” says this and it says that. We are told “Listen to the scientists”——-But almost all of this climate alarmism is based on Modelling. But modelling full of speculations, and assumptions about what effect CO2 will have on the climate is NOT SCIENCE, and the truth is that even the most basic parameters are poorly understood. There are no experts or scientists or modelers who know what the climate is going to do in 50 or 100 years. We now live in an age where science has been hijacked for political purposes. It has morphed into Post Modern Science where you don’t require any evidence and observations don’t even have to align with your theory. You simply form huge political bodies (IPCC) and declare the Truth in front of the watching media.

184
-2
AethelredTheReadier
AethelredTheReadier
1 year ago
Reply to  varmint

Great comment. Talk to your average man/woman in the street about alternative science and they’ll look at you just like they did when you didn’t wear a mask or refused to get a jab. I’ve been going to my local council for well over a year now asking them why they declared a climate emergency in 2019 along with just about every other council in the country. They couldn’t give me an answer. They just parroted things back to me that they had read, watched or listened to in the daily propaganda. It really is a cult and they think that we’re in a cult. So, after a few attempts at teaching them about the sustainable development Agenda 21/2030, I and my compatriots realised we were never going to break through their wilful inability to research things for themselves. they’ll cheer things on like the planned massive solar farm of 2000 acres near Malmesbury. 2000 acres of good farmland and this is happening all over as farmers are squeezed on profits and are encouraged to retire. There is nothing scientific about this, it is ALL political and all about power and money.

146
0
varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  AethelredTheReadier

People that work in Local Government don’t have to know anything about climate or energy. They just have to follow instructions from above about what is to be done about the impending “climate emergency”. If anyone stood up in a Local Government Conference room meeting about rewilding or reintroducing Wolves or some other absurdity or about how the council was going to reduce its emissions to meet Net Zero targets and questioned any of that, firstly everyone would look at this person like they were from Mars, and secondly, they may well find themselves on restricted duties and some re-education courses.

72
-2
Ron Smith
Ron Smith
1 year ago
Reply to  varmint

What possible good would come from introducing Wolves again….Foxes kill enough lambs, Wolves would kill sheep too and calves. Then again, there does seem to be a war on food producing farmers. Too bad many of us on here could see that before the actual farmers did.

29
-1
varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  Ron Smith

I was only using the idea of bringing back Wolves as an example of the kind of absurdity we get from the pretend to save the planet people these days. I could have chosen any amount of their silly ideas.

25
-2
SimCS
SimCS
1 year ago
Reply to  varmint

‘People that work in Local Government’ are just sheep, following the flock, who follows the shepherd’s ‘instructions from above’. I have the same in my village, where the Parish Council are looking at a 20mph imposition, but most parish councillors and residents are just following the feel-good but unsubstantiated notion (belief) that somehow 20mph is better than 30.

9
0
CircusSpot
CircusSpot
1 year ago
Reply to  varmint

It also goes hand in hand with ignoring the actual evidence like the subsea volcano near Tonga or other volcanic activity since they cannot be predicted or controlled which drives a coach and horses through the models.
Meanwhile our craven media (even GBN) will not challenge the politicians about the high standing charges for electricity and gas when they keep repeating our energy costs are going down.

79
0
varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  CircusSpot

Nana Akua on GB News questions climate orthodoxy. Others like Bev Turner will do also. So did Mark Steyn etc. But on the whole you are correct. They often eg on the breakfast show with Eamonn and Isabel have on that McCarthy chap from the Independent or Jim Dale both of whom are rabid climate change activists, and ofcourse Eamonn and Isabel have rings run around them because they really know nothing at all about energy or climate.

57
-1
Dinger64
Dinger64
1 year ago
Reply to  varmint

“know what the climate is going to do in 50 or 100 years”

The ‘experts’ cannot accurately predict the weather tomorrow let alone the climate in 50 years time!

Last edited 1 year ago by Dinger64
94
0
RW
RW
1 year ago
Reply to  Dinger64

That’s why the prefer to do the latter: Their predictions are less easily disproven.

22
0
MTF
MTF
1 year ago
Reply to  Dinger64

The ‘experts’ cannot accurately predict the weather tomorrow let alone the climate in 50 years time!

This belongs in my list of old, common, and easily refuted sceptical objections.

There are many systems where it is almost impossible to predict what will happen in the short term (weather) but easy to predict long term trends (climate). Traffic flow in a city with growing population, blood pressure in a patient with clogged arteries, share prices in a growing economy ….

3
-34
RW
RW
1 year ago
Reply to  MTF

This must be the reason why the climate wobblers have racked up such an impressive amount of failed predicitions.

34
0
varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  MTF

Except modellers don’t make “predictions”. They put assumptions, speculations and guesses into a climate model and make lots of little “what if” scenarios called “projections”. ——That isn’t science.

38
-1
GMO
GMO
1 year ago
Reply to  MTF

“ but easy to predict long term trends (climate)”

Can you prove that?

2
0
Dinger64
Dinger64
1 year ago

Steam has more of an effect on the climate than co2!

52
-2
MTF
MTF
1 year ago

The Koutsoyiannis paper argues that the change in C12/C13 ratio might be down to natural causes, in particular the expansion of the biosphere. For some reason, although he briefly mentions C14, he does not explain how natural causes could account for the drop in C14 (which can only be accounted for by the burning of very old plant material as it undergoes radioactive decay).

3
-41
Oowotwnwrwyhow
Oowotwnwrwyhow
1 year ago
Reply to  MTF

Increased plan growth removes C14 as well as other C isotopes from the atmosphere and warming emits a different proportion of C isotopes from the oceans where there will be less C14.

2
-1
MTF
MTF
1 year ago
Reply to  Oowotwnwrwyhow

Fair enough. I guess it is a matter of calculating quantities. I still wonder why Koutsoyiannis doesn’t deal with this.

In a sense it makes little difference. Burning fossil fuels undoubtedly contributes a large amount of Co2 to the atmosphere. If expansion of the biosphere is also making a large contribution then it becomes even more important not contribute to it.

2
-3
Oowotwnwrwyhow
Oowotwnwrwyhow
1 year ago
Reply to  MTF

Expansion of the biosphere reduces CO2 in the atmosphere. It’s one of the many negative feedbacks to warming like GHG spectrum saturation, more cloud from atmospheric H2O increase, increased Boltzmann radiation, cooling due to DMS increase from warming seas causing plankton increase ie the old GAIA theory. Bundle that lot together with warming caused by the reduction of SO2 owing to the clean air acts and it’s pretty clear that climate models don’t stand a chance to predict the climate future, oh and by the way the system is mathematically chaotic.If you find climate predictions credible I’ve got some swamp land to sell you.

5
-1
GMO
GMO
1 year ago
Reply to  MTF

Relationships do not prove causation.

3
0

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