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A CO2 puzzle 2

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GregLocock

GregLocock

Automotive
Apr 10, 2001
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Predicates

The gold standard of CO2 measurements is Mauna Loa.
CO2 is well mixed in the atmosphere.
The mass of the atmosphere is 5e15 tons
M-L says CO2 is increasing by 2-3ppm every year (2.8 is a long term average) The IEA says we release about 32 GT of CO2 per year for energy related use

Maths

5e15T*3e-6=15GT

Hypotheses
1) one of my predicates is wrong
2) I can't do maths
3) ML is not measuring CO2 very well
4) There are negative feedback loops pulling half the additional CO2 out of the atmosphere every year

Discussion

Assuming 1-3 are irrelevant, something is eating half our CO2 within a year of it being emitted. If CO2 emissions reach net zero (they won't) then CO2 levels will fall by 1 ppm per year, at least initially. But if we got to 50% emissions, ie 16 GT/year, we'd expect the CO2 ppm to stabilise. The odd thing is that we were at that level of emissions in 1975 (approx), and yet we still had 1.2 ppm/year.

So there seems to be an absorption mechanism that is more active now than it was in 1975.

Some possibilities are

[ul]
[li]dealkalization of seawater, but that is a chemical process and is driven by ppm, 330 in 1975, 416 in 2021, so we'd expect a 26% increase, not 100% *[/li]
[li]greening of the earth- I don't have a handle on that[/li]
[/ul].

*not quite, it is driven by the excess ppm over the long term equilibrium value, which i don't know, possibly 280 ppm



Cheers

Greg Locock


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Ack, I've just realized, the driver for seawater is excess ppm, so if 280 is the long term equilibrium then in 1975 it would have been 330-280=50, and in 2021 416-280=136, so in fact it has the right sort of behaviour.

Good oh

Estimated mass of plants is 450 GT and "For the period 2003-12, we found that the total amount of vegetation above the ground has increased by about 4 billion tonnes of carbon.", ie about 0.5 GT per year, nowhere near enough to explain the missing CO2.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
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it's great when we can answer our own questions.

thx for the view into the mind of Greg ...

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?
 
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Proponents of ocean fertilizing (with powdered iron or iron sulfide) claim the rate of ocean C02 uptake has diminished in recent decades due to a diminished natural supply from erosion. That the rate of uptake (and C02 sinking) due to phytoplankton could offset fossil fuels quite easily.
 
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With virtually no side effects!

Caution: Unknown side effects will absolutely occur

- Andrew
 
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There is some more recent talk that separates global warming from CO2. The warming itself is primarily from the heat generated by the combustion of fuels, the CO2 effect is much smaller.

(Trying to find the article)

The effect must be significant because even wind turbines cause warming and that's without adding any heat to the atmosphere.

 
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do you mean the waste heat from doing anything ?

another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?
 
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I've always wondered why atmospheric science when applied to other planets is never controversial, but when it is applied to earth, for which we have data better by a factor of >10**6 in terms of both quantity and quality, gets so many hobby climate scientists and keyboard warriors so upset.

Has anybody noticed how much better 3-5 day weather forecasts have gotten? It's brought to you by those same wretched, interest-conflicted, grant-sucking scientists with their supercomputers and secret agendas!

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."
 
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That's exactly the point, IM. We have so much more data for Earth. There is a lot more to talk about. Climate science on other planets is much simpler due to the lack of data.

Otherwise, I believe you can thank the military for our better weather reports. I don't think Sierra Club contributed to that.
 
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TugboatEng said:
I don't think Sierra Club contributed to that.
Click to expand...

Well it follows logically then that Sierra Club must be part of the problem. Also that we should be more grateful for the activities of the US military.
(Just wondering, is developing weather forecasting part of Sierra Club's brief?)



"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."
 
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If the climate scientists get exoweather wrong it has no practical effect. If they get their climate models wrong and they are used to drive political and economic agendas then they directly affect our lives. Therefore practically everybody is far more invested in Earth's climate than exoclimate.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
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Oh this is great, I misread my own graph. Damn. So here's a plot of energy related CO2 emissions per year, in GT, and the CHANGE in CO2 ppm per year (I thought it was ppm in my original post). As I said it is well described by a straight line, but of course the slope is the second derivative of ppm, so ppm is accelerating.

CO2ppmaccel_age9ec.jpg


Luckily the recent ppm/year is about 2.5 so I think my initial calculations above were roughly right, but the comment about 1975 is wrong.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
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Has anybody noticed how much better 3-5 day weather forecasts have gotten? It's brought to you by those same wretched, interest-conflicted, grant-sucking scientists with their supercomputers and secret agendas!
Click to expand...

They don't seem any better to me. Temperatures and precipitation are still mostly hit or miss 3-5 days out. I consider it lucky if they get Sunny vs overcast right.
 
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The pseudo experts that claim there is fossil oil in the ground, should not be concerned with any release of Co2 from that oil what so ever. Since said fossils once lived on the earth just like vegetation so that makes said fossils, carbon neutral.
 
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Yeah, but when the vegetation that formed that oil was alive, the CO2 ppm was about 4000-7000, and temperatures were around 5-15 deg C hotter. So while there is no doubt that animals and plants can live in those conditions, abundantly, it would be a very different world, for a start the sea levels would be a couple of hundred metres higher. OTOH dragonflies the size of vultures, I'd like to see that. Anyway even at current rates of burning fossil fuels we won't be up to 4000 ppm for many centuries.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
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does snakeoil increase or reduce the carbon footprint? [ponder]

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Do you feel any better?

-Dik
 
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CO2 levels... from one source...BP- Before the present time. The CO2 is the highest it's ever been since human life has been on earth 2-4M years BP.

Clipboard01_biwglv.jpg


Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Do you feel any better?

-Dik
 
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Good old RCP8.5 still being used to scare the horses I see. How are they going to fit 1.5 billion people (ie China's population) into Nigeria (current pop 175 million)? I know there's a bit of desert in China, but not that much. 5 times current coal mining. Gosh. Better buy some mining shares. That's what RCP8.5 is based on.

rcp85_xfnynt.jpg



Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
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Thanks Greg... on a per capita basis, China is still less than half the US carbon output, and India is about one-tenth...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Do you feel any better?

-Dik
 
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Decarbonising the first world by 50% is going to be incredibly difficult, once you actually account for CO2 used in manufacture elsewhere. It'd be interesting to work out that per capita figure for the end user of each manufactured item. So if you use aluminum foil made in China to wrap your sandwiches, then you should have the CO2 used in its manufacture added to your score, and it should come out of China's.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
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