Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: Anthropogenic CO2.

re: Anthropogenic CO2.
dtb — (archived)

What the heck is dishonest -- we burn tons of carbon-based fuels, and see a corresponding increase in atmospheric CO2.

Given the quantities of fossil fuels being consumed (a number known quite well), and of biomass being burned (known less well, but certainly the right order of magnitude), it's easy to calculate the mass of CO2 that is produced by that amount of combustion. It's then also trivial to figure out how the atmospheric concentration should increase. There are about 800 gigatons total in the atmosphere, and about 10 gigatons emitted, so an annual increase of ~1% sounds reasonable, and that's in the ballpark of what's actually observed.

Is your argument that coal really doesn't contain carbon? That burning carbon doesn't produce CO2?

We do monitor big volcanoes, and so have a good estimate of how much CO2 comes out of them (much less than anthropogenic).

Moreover, to the extent there are differences in CO2 concentrations geographically, my understanding is that those are consistent with anthropogenic sources.

When you add up the known sources of CO2, the bottom line is that atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are increasingly LESS rapidly than should be the case given the mass of carbon being oxidized by humans. That's actually a common argument by global warming skeptics -- that we don't understand the system since there's clearly a big sink we haven't figured out.

I'll grant we are a long way from understanding adequately how CO2 concentrations affect climate; that piece of the science has plenty of holes you can attack. I don't know of anyone serious who argues that burning billions of tons of coal/oil/wood each year doesn't produce enough CO2 to affect atmospheric stocks.

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