An 800 year lag between temperature rise and carbon dioxide?

Question

What does it mean that there's an "800 year lag between temperature rise and carbon dioxide"? This is a quote from an online article I was reading, and I can't add any more info to it as there was none to add. I've tried finding what this means, but can't find further info. So what does this mean, and what does it mean for those who support CO2's significance to Global Warming? Does it mean that it takes 800 years for CO2 to have any affect upon temperature rise - is that correct? Please state your evidence. Thanks.

Sorry I don't have the URL of the article.

Answer 1

Check this Czech out:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/04/co2-lags-temperature-how-alarmists.html

What this means in a nutshell is that the temperature rises first, then CO2 rises proportionally, both reaching their peaks some 800 years apart. The likely culprit is the release of CO2 from the ocean via the thermohaline conveyor which cycles surface and deep ocean waters with periods as much as 1600 years. We do know that the deep ocean holds far more CO2 than the atmosphere - by a long shot - so the capability of being responsible for all of the excess CO2 presently in the atmosphere AND MORE is definitely there.

Answer 2

Increases in the levels of atmoispheric carbon dioxide and temperatures are inexorably linked.

In the past the average global temperature of the planet has warmed and cooled as a result of natural cycles. As the planet goes through a warming phase there are many changes that take place and one of the main ones is that the oceans warm up. The seas and oceans form part of the natural carbon cycle both absorbing and releasing CO2, changing temps affect the rate of absorbption and release.

Because the seas and oceans are so huge it takes them a very long time to warm up and historically the planet has warmed prior to levels of CO2 rising.

When people refer to an 800 year lag what they're meaning is that the planet warms up then 800 years later levels of CO2 rise. This is a much simplified way of putting it and there isn't an 800 year lag as such - there's sometimes an approximate 800 year difference between the peaks of temp and the peaks of atmospheric CO2 levels - CO2 levels rise all the time that temp is rising, it's just that the peaks don't coincide.

It also works the other way around as well, if levels of CO2 rise then temps also start to rise. Again, they both rise at the same time but the peaks don't coincide.

It's a bit like the sun during the day. As the sun rises it warms up but when the sun reaches it's peak (1pm) it still keeps warming. The sun starts to set but it's not for another 3 hours that the temps reach their peak (on average) - the sun causes the day to warm up but the peak of the sun and peak temps don't coincide.

You asked if it takes 800 years for CO2 to have an effect on temps. The effect of increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and the other greenhouse gases is an immediate one. These gases effectively insulate the planet and the more of them there are in the atmosphere the better the insulation and the warmer the world becomes.

Answer 3

We know from ice core samples that historically when global warming occurred, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations also increased, but not until about 800 years later.

http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Planning/New_Data/

Many global warming deniers think this is evidence that CO2 can’t cause global warming. In fact, that’s the very first argument in the terrible Great Global Warming Swindle. On the contrary, this is actually evidence that human greenhouse gas emissions are currently causing global warming. Compare the following global temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration plots from 1960-Present:

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide.png

As you can see they’re both rising – not with an 800 year delay, but at the same time. If CO2 wasn’t causing global warming as was the case in the past, then why is there no 800 year delay?

This only proves a correlation between CO2 and global warming and not a causality. The reason we’ve concluded that greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming (or more accurately, accelerating it) is because natural causes can’t account for the increase in global warming over the past 40-50 years. They account for most of the warming prior to that, but climate models have determined that greenhouse gases are responsible for about 80-90% of the recent global warming:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

The very first inputs into climate models were solar, volcanic, and sunspot contributions, but they simply couldn’t account for the recent acceleration in global warming. Thus climate scientists have concluded that humans are the primary cause.

Answer 4

Try this site:
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11659

It mentions the 800 year lag, or go to the movies, any movie.

There is a time lag, the heat and drought on the West, dries up weeds and plants, which bring wildfires, which dry up and burns trees, which bring forest fires and all this brings millions of tons of Carbon that plants and trees had stored in the soil for hundreds of years, and so on.
All the Carbon Dioxide increases the Green House effect in the air, which increase the temperature.
All this happens over time, a time lag is predictable, but not to worry, we will all be dead when summer temperatures reach 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Las Vegas had 128 degrees a couple of weeks ago. Las Vegas is the fastest growing city in the U.S. There must be a lot of optimistic gamblers there.

The main point may be that the heat will not come overnight or over a couple of years. I don't expect to live long enough to see the floods but, may get to read about lack of drinking water in countries far away.
We are lucky! California has a Governor that wants to build big dams to store water. Gov. Schwarzenegger has foresight.
Not everyone agrees, some want their children to take care of humanity, they are the really optimists.

Answer 5

The C02 agenda is not so much a lie as a gross exaggeration. Greenhouse gasses are just one component in a complex interactive system. C02 is only a minor greenhouse gas (3%) water vapour (95%) and trace gasses(2%) are the others. Man made C02 is only 3% of the total entering the atmosphere, so man's total contribution to the greenhouse effect is 3% of 3% which equals 0.09%. So if humans stopped all fossil fuel use altogether it would hardly make a measurable difference to the total climate picture. So the political case for man made global warming grossly exaggerates the role of C02, and man's contribution to it.

Answer 6

If you take your 800 years and go back from 2007 (today) 800 years it puts us at 1207, the beginning of the 13th century. This was still 285 years before Columbus discovered America. The only way for anything to be made was through the burning of fossil fuel and there was a lot of that going on but the whole earth population was a fraction of what it is now.

Unfortunately jump forward 800 years to today and guess what? Still a full 98% of all things made are from burning fossil fuels with the remaining 2% representing nucular.

What I believe your article is referring to was the earth could absorb the CO2 emissions when there was a small population, but now with the world at 5 billion people it can't. So it's taken 800 years for us to see the drastic effects that fossil fuel emissions have wrecked on our planet and probably another 800 to get things back to normal if that's possible.

Answer 7

In the past warming started for other reasons, usually the Sun. As the Earth warmed the oceans slowly warmed. Warm water holds less CO2 so CO2 levels started to rise later. Several hundred years is how long it takes for waters from the deep ocean to circulate up to the surface.

This time there is no lag; CO2 and temperature are going up together. It's yet another proof that this warming is mostly _caused_ by CO2 and the greenhouse effect.

More here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=13

Answer 8

The 800 year lag theory is just that a theory trying to prove what they believe with co2 they grasp at any ideals that might explain it. But if it were so how come we see immediate reaction from volcano explosions? The answer is we do not know. Carbon is a good thing plants absorb it and produce oxygen and forms water vapor as well. You must understand that the current carbon fight is not scientific it is political, it is meant to destroy America way of life and allow other countries who have huge carbon buildups to not have to take care of their problems without us paying for them. Our country is the cleanest in the world and or cars produce the least amount of pollution anywhere in the world. Go to any third world country and you will see their machine belching out co2 and black smoke so bad that it will make you sick. Do research and you will find that there is many things that cause a rise in CO2 like Forest fires are we going to outlaws them? common sense goes a long way and just because a dozen scientists say something is true does not make it so, remember we once thought the earth was the center of the universe and it revolved around the earth, that was the current science then we also thought the earth was flat but Columbus read his bible and knew it was round even before anyone ever sailed around it. I don't want to bash the green machine they mean well but they also do more damage and try to inflict their ideal on everyone to believe in their solutions. We had that happen one before it was Hitler he believed in evolution and so started killing Jews to help speed up the process of evolution, funny he was not blonde nor blue eyed ad he was a conservationist so you see do not believe everything you are told and just because science thinks it's right it is not always right, look at the errors sending robots to mars and the problems they had, look at what hey thought they would find their and were totally wrong. And at one time we thought the moon was made of cheese. Science has also thought that many species of animals were extinct but have been proven wrong many times over. Science is a process of trial and error like when one scientist built the first light bulb his first working one was the 101 bulb that worked and his answer was he had not failed he had learned how not to make a light bulb 100 ways to get it to work he had a goal and he figured it out but over many trail and errors.

Answer 9

No. Global warming cycles in the pat have had various causes. A CO2 rise centuries earier would have no connection. I don't know what "article" you were reading, but its almost certainly more propaganda put out by the special interests.

The current global warming is caused by human released CO2--and the warming effect occurs very quickly. Don't worry about not having the URL--there's enough junk science out there without it.

Answer 10

They're trying to make you think you have 800 years before you have to worry about the problem. It's really more like 40.