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Close examination of the small perturbations within the atmospheric CO2 trend, as measured at Mauna Loa, reveals a strong correlation with variations in sea surface temperatures (SSTs), most notably with those in the tropics. The temperature-dependent process of CO2 degassing and ab-sorption via sea surfaces is well-documented, and changes in SSTs will also coincide with changes in terrestrial temperatures, and temperature-dependent changes in the marine and terrestrial bio-spheres with their associated carbon cycles. Using SST and Mauna Loa datasets, three methods of analysis are presented that seek to identify and estimate the anthropogenic and, by default, natural components of recent increases in atmospheric CO2, an assumption being that changes in SSTs coincide with changes in nature’s influence, as a whole, on atmospheric CO2 levels. The findings of the analyses suggest that an anthropogenic component is likely to be less than 10 % of the increase since the mid-1990s, with figures of up to around 6 % being estimated from data acquired since 1995. The inference is that more than 90 % of those increases are of natural origin, and indeed the findings suggest that nature is continually working to maintain an atmospheric/sur-face CO2 balance, which is itself dependent on temperature. A further pointer to this balance may come from chemical measurements that indicate a brief peak in atmospheric CO2 levels centred around the 1940s, and that coincided with a peak in global SSTs.
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