Study: No Discernible Link From CO2 Forcing To Climate For 97% Of The Last 425 Million Years

For CO2 to be considered a driver of Earth’s temperatures, changes in CO2 that uni-directionally correlate with temperatures should not be an exceptional occurrence. Yet a causal link from CO2 radiative forcing to temperature changes could hypothetically be inferred for just 2.6% of the last 425 million years.

A detailed analysis (Davis, 2017) of temperature and CO2 proxies over the Phanerozoic Eon by environmenalist Dr. W. Jackson Davis  finds that for 77.9% of the record there was a non-discernible correlation between CO2 and temperature.

On the occasion there was a correlation between CO2 and temperature, most (60%) of the correlation instances were negative. In other words, when a correlation could be discerned, temperatures fell as CO2 rose or CO2 fell as temperatures rose more often than CO2 and temperature rose and fell with a semblence of synchronicity.

If we assume temperature changes are radiatively forced or amplified by CO2, this cause-effect link could be correlationally established for just 2.6% of the 4.25 million-year record.

As Dr. Davis concludes, “changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration did not cause temperature change in the ancient climate.”

Image Source: Davis, 2017

No discernible correlation between CO2 and temperature for the last 80,000 years either

Some newly published papers also contradict the claim CO2 is a driver of Earth’s temperature changes.

Li and Born (2019) document 8-16°C climate warmings (D-O events) in Greenland that extended to both hemispheres between about 80 and 15 thousand years ago. (Though global in scope, temperature changes were less pronounced outside Greenland.)

These abrupt warmings occurred within decades (or less), and they occurred without any CO2 fluctuation before or after the change.

CO2 hovered around 190 ppm to 200 ppm throughout each warming and cooling event.

Even more fascinating, it’s been suggested that these warm-ups may have required no external forcing, as they’re considered an “unforced oscillation”.

The climate system can warm by 8-16°C within decades via internal variability.

Image Source: Li and Born (2019)

Throughout the last glacial, when CO2 remained effectively unchanged at about 200 ppm, there were warming periods that exceeded the Holocene’s thermal maximum by 2-6°C in locations ranging from Southern Europe to Russia to California.

Of course, none of these warming and cooling climate transitions could be associated with changes in CO2 either.

Image Source: Bidauretta, 2019  & Ramos-Roman et al., 2018

Image Source: Ganyushkin et al., 2018

Image Source: Feakins et al., 2019

11 responses to “Study: No Discernible Link From CO2 Forcing To Climate For 9711 Of The Last 425 Million Years”

  1. John Shade

    More support for the case that the modern wave of end-of-the-world-is-nigh doomsters are pushing an importance, and a role, for CO2 which it has never seemed to have had in the past. Nor for that matter, in the present, since all we have been seeing in these past few decades is consistent with CO2 being a very minor player.

  2. drumphish

    A 43,000 year old tree couldn’t do it alone while it was living, fully dependent upon the sun and the earth, no doubt about it.

    C55H72MgN4O5

    Can’t get very far without chlorophyll, in fact, you won’t get much without photosynthesis.

    Heavy metals are required to achieve life forms.

    Porphyrins have those, hemoglobin is THE porphyrin ring. Oxygen to the rescue.

    Light and heat from the sun do what nobody on earth can do, take us out of the dark. You’re able to see with no problem and experience warmth with no trouble at all. Can’t do it alone. An atmosphere that is able to support life forms, you’re on your way, no turning back.

    The autotrophs are here so the heterotrophs can live and thrive, the old food chain.

    Can’t argue with success. Long live the Earth. har

  3. David Appell

    “Study: No Discernible Link From CO2 Forcing To Climate For 97% Of The Last 425 Million Years
    By Kenneth Richard”

    Oh please, this is such a stupid idea, you are a fool for thinking it’s true.

    I’m sure you don’t to debate it, because somewhere you have again conjured another billion climate science papers that show CO2 has nothing to do with climate. How can one person be so wrong?

  4. David Appell

    So foolish.

    MDPI is, at best, a junk journal. Pure junk. It’s where losers publish because they couldn’t get published in Science or Nature or the AGU journals or PNAS. Or even PLOS.

    No real scientist published in MDPI. None read it. It’s a journal that will satisfy an ego for page charges.

    Ripe to fool climate deniers.

    1. Sunsettommy

      Then David, you admit you have no answer to the posted papers or the article itself.

      Ad Homs, name calling in general indicate you have nothing to offer here about the subject.

      Cheers.

  5. No Discernible Link From CO2 Forcing To Climate For 97% Of The Last 425 Million Years – Truth is difficult but essential…
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