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Earth Releasing More CO2 Than Originally Thought
grqb writes "A new study out of the UK suggests that terrestrial sinks across the planet are mopping up much less carbon than predicted, on balance, and so the planet may warm at an even faster rate than expected. The study focused on the carbon content in soil at 6000 sites in the UK between 1978 and 2003 and found that the soil released the equivalent of 8% of the UK's total 1990 carbon dioxide emissions. These emissions are more than the entire reduction in emissions the UK has achieved between 1990 and 2002 as part of its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol. This would effectively cancel out the UK's recent successes in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and would have wider global implications as well."
Anyone else puzzled at first at how "Earth" is releasing CO2 into space?
I'm buying land in warm, sunny Alaska.
Well... it'll be sunny and warm by the time I retire.
This would effectively cancel out the UK's recent successes in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and would have wider global implications as well.
In this case we have the earth releasing CO2 into the air, something we really don't have the means to stop. Although the net effect might mean the same emissions as before, at least the man made emissions are being reduced, that's what un-natural. If the earth is going to release some CO2, that's something that would have happened anyway. So that's not exactly "cancelling out" the effect.
WASTE - The Secure P2P
Please dont flame me, I am not a chemist or a physicist or any sort of scientist.
But if the alternative is to have most of the world's coastal cities suffer the same fate as New Orleans, why can't we put some thought and money into actively extracting CO2 and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere instead of merely cutting down emissions?
I know that it would take a lot of energy and currently most energy sources add to the pollution problem, but still, is it even possible to somehow filter the crap from the atmosphere? What would it entail?
How is that cancelling out the emissions reductions? Aren't there less CO2 emissions overall because of those reductions? Aren't there fewer man-made emissions?
This would effectively cancel out the UK's recent successes in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and would have wider global implications as well.
This would only be true if the soil would not be releasing CO2 prior to the recent reductions in greenhouse emissions.
Yes, there is a lot of uncertainty concerning the mechanics of CO2 emissions. But that doesn't mean we should stop trying to reduce them each time we find out that we are not the only source of CO2 emissions.
... but I'm not going to hold my breath to save it!
Maybe the Earth wants CO2 to be released, so it is upping the CO2 in soil. Or the Earth wants to kill us by ridding us of precious O2.
An 8% difference is inaccurate as hell? Many modellers would call field validation to within 8% a triumph for the model.
Cancel out? Its not like by trying to reduce CO2 in area X, another area Y produced more CO2 in response to reduction in X -- this is not the case, and while knowledge of what produces CO2 is not complete, it is just plain silly to imply that there was no point to even try reducing it!
If it had not been reduced then there would have been MORE of it, not less.
alexc
Join Majestic-12 Distributed Search Engine
I'm just now having a skype discussion with a liberal buddy of mine in CA and as i have been telling him for the last 6 years ... WE NEED MORE RESEARCH like this. not some knee jerk reaction like Kyoto which is/was also a knee JERK reaction based questionable research. Dam people i make my decisions based on valid data... ... this planet changes and always will change... either with us or without us... lets see who of you will prevent the next ice age (or blame that one on man also)
*--- Sometimes a majority only means that all the fools are on the same side. ---*
An article from earlier in the year attests to how land use can affect if it will act as a sink or source. http://www.physorg.com/news3857.html
Another article from the same site shows how studies of the Amazon river basin reveal that carbon emissions from the Amazon river are younger than previous thought http://www.physorg.com/news5471.html
Really what comes about from these articles and others is that we still don't have a complete picture. While it is great press to claim we can simulate the earth and predict things like global warming and cooling we still run into the fact we don't know all the variables. Yes man contributes but how much? Indirect methods are revealed by how land use affected CO2 emissions and absorption.
I do think that what the Earth is doing on its own in regards to CO2 emissions should not be weighed against how well we reduce our own emissions. Granted the changes in the planet may seemingly undo what we accomplish we still improve our ecosystem by reducing OUR effect on it.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Obviously the climate change is due to God's anger with various countries allowing gay marriages.
I firmly believe this can be stopped by giving tax cuts to the wealthy.
I want to walk the Earth and kick ass where needed, like Cain from the TV show Kung-Fu.
indonesia peat burning emits 1/7th of global CO2
i'm surprised this wasn't mentioned as well.
So if you're investing in Global Warming, don't buy real estate -- too uncertain what will happen to it. You might consider wind farming...
Soil released 8%
that is really not all that much.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
When are people going to accept the fact that the Earth goes in cycles? There have been and will be ice ages and warming cycles regardless of what humans do. Here is a report showing that the Earth is giving off more CO^2 that previously expected. So we change the models and get a new estimate on when things will become really dicey. Hopefully by that time we will have established self sustaining colonies in space and on the Moon and other planets. Only by getting humans off the planet will survival be better assured.
The huge volcanoe that will erupt in Utah shortly along with a few other disasters will push us into another ice age quicker than most think.
A concerted effort to achieve relatively cheap routine access to space needs to be initiated. Hopefully the private sector will do what NASA has been unable to do.
The rate of increase of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere is easily and accurately measured. We KNOW how fast greenhouse gasses are going into the atmosphere. So the premise that "soils are absorbing less than we thought, so warming will occur faster than we thought" is fatally flawed.
Until 2000 I worked in a climate research lab - not as a scientist; I was a tech. Here's what the actual research (that the article twists) probably found. It is well known that atmospheric CO2 is increasing less rapidly than our models predict, because we don't know what's providing the sink for about half of what we're generating. So it's likely that some British scientists had speculated these soils were part of this "missing sink" (bad pun intended). However now they know they aren't as much of a factor - so the search will go on.
#DeleteChrome
I'm sorry, but just for the sake of argument, can we try not considering ourselves a disease?
I mean even the actual diseases seem to have more self-love than people like you.
Lets get a little more enthusiasm for our species going here, huh?
When the discussion began about modeling the earth's atmosphere, I politley suggested that using models to decide policy was a bad idea. Particularly because of unknowns such as this one.
What I would like to know is where are all the people who were accusing me of being a toady for Bush?
Why won't you people admit that flawed inputs means flawed models and as a result the predictions are likely inaccurate.
Stop trying to change the world until you know how and what should be changed. And yes, that may mean it gets much worse before it gets better.
Oh please. Spare me yet another gaiatribe. The Earth is a ball of spacegoing rock no more or less significant than any other similarly-sized chunk of cosmic debris. It has value to us because we live upon it, but Earth doesn't need "saving" and even if we set off every single thermonuclear device in our possession simultaneously we couldn't destroy it. And even if we could ... so what? Stop anthropomorphizing planets ... it's just silly. The Earth is not some living organism with an autoimmune system that is trying to eliminate an infection. We inhabit a thin, green paste on the outer surface of our world ... certainly we can render it useless to ourselves, but do you really think the planet gives a flying you-know-what whether there's life on it or not? I bet you believe in the tooth fairy too. Go on, admit it. You do.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Dear Dendrian,
Our secret plan to trick humans into releasing more CO2 into the atmosphere is working. Now us green plants can breath easier and grow larger, eventually displacing those ugly pink and brown humans. Green Power!
Your Friend, Piney Tree
Table-ized A.I.
Slashdottings contribute to .023% increase in CO2 emmissions due to increased power consumption.
However, the sedentary nature of its readers cancels out this effect.
The UK business market continues to decline as burdens from Kyoto compliance make UK's unionized labor even less efficient on a global scale.
More lives will be lost and more suffering will be created than any CO2 emissions can create.
Exactly what Kyoto supporters want. Bring the middle class into the lower class through regulations and taxes rather than uplifting the lower class through opportunity and expansion of the industry base.
I didn't realize the UK had ratified and began working on their commitments to Kyoto back in 1990, 15 years before it went into force and 7 years before it was written.
Now that I think about it, it would probably make more sense to ratify it before it was written. After all, the only potential effect it could have would be to destroy our economy and thus reduce our ability to respond to climate change using technological means.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
You know, you probably already know about this website, but if not, I think you would appreciate it....
http://ned.ucam.org/~sdh31/misc/destroy.html
Hope it gives you a laugh!
Cheers,
Well according to the article, it's only happening in the UK correct.
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Good thing North America is a Net Carbon Sink
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd
http://www.climatechangedebate.org/pdf/FanPaper.p
And before someone says it's warmer since 1998, no it's not. Thanks the El Nino of 1998 we saw a tremendous spike, and tempreatures are cooler today than then.
Shhhh... don't mention any sources of global warming (or cooling) that can't be blamed on the following:
... you know)
1) The United States, generally
2) George W. Bush, personally
3) White males
4) Hummers (the vehicles, not the
5) Animal testing
6) Microsoft
7) Republicans
8) Amazon.com's patent portfolio
Good! Now, repeat after me: "All Hail Slashdot Groupthink! Flamebait == My Politics Differ! Troll = Possibly correct, but goes against my preconceived notions!"
Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina proves to me without a doubt, that the man is a serial killer.
Evidence:
1. Lots of executions in Texas.
2. World Trade Center (somehow it is just too convenient).
3. The b.s. war on terror, and Iraq.
4. Delay of 6 days before allowing any aid in.
I seriously doubt he gives a damn about the planet in any way. I think he would like it if more people died.
So there's nothing we can do we are all doomed by the whack job who runs the US government.
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Technically, we are beyond survival.
CO2 in the atmosphere has risen from 275ppm to about 375ppm since measurements of that gas began more than 100 years ago. Everyone assumes it is due to burning of fossil fuels, but that assumption cannot be proven because Carbon atoms from various sources have not been tagged and followed by any global experiment that I am aware of. All assignments have been based on statistics, and with that science you can prove anything.
u .html
At the equator water vapor is present in the atmosphere at 2,169 times the concentration of CO2 and water vapor has 7 TIMES the greenhouse power that CO2 has. That makes water, effectively, 15,000 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2. Most people assume that CO2 is the culprit because of an unproven theory that water vapor amplifies the effects of CO2. Or, maybe it's the other way around. Unproven theories tend to be dynamic.
Other sources of CO2 have increased: the human population has risen from 1 BILLION to 6 BILLION in the last 100 years, and humans exhale CO2 24/7, unlike combustion engines. Most humans on this planet do not own a combustion engine or use one.
The ratio of CO2 produced / O2 consumed is called respiratory quotient (RQ), which depends on type of nutrients being used for energy. According to a study by the USDA [1], an average person's respiration generates approximately 450 liters (roughly 900 grams) of carbon dioxide per day, or about 5.4 Billion tons per day, or 1,971 Billion tons per year. That's about 538 Billion tons of Carbon. By comparison, the USA produces about a little more than 1 Billion tons of coal per year. The World demand for oil last year was 82 Million barrels per day, or around 9.3 Billion tons of oil per year. If I've made a mistake I'm sure someone will correct me, if they use the same source of information: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/petrole
Please do.
If my figures are correct human breath contributes more C02 to the atmosphere than machines do, probably because CO2 absorbed from the atmosphere by plants used as food, as they grow, is more than that created by farmers producing the food plants.
Dr. Alfred Bartlett was the first to state that "Farming is just a way of using land to convert oil into food." It's takes approximately 7 times more energy to put a slice of bread in your mouth than you get by metabolising it.
If CO2 is the cause of gloabl warming, humans appear to be the major source and the Carbon fuels used to feed them the minor source. If we cut back on the use of fossil fuel we condem a BILLION or more people to a death sentence by starvation, and the starving will continue until we replace Carbon with another energy source of equal or better density, or until the final population level can be supported by the new energy source.
Personally, I believe the evidence shows, and long before the "Carbon Tax" became the newest wealth redistribution scheme, that the Sun is responsible for the Earth's mean temperature, even with 6 BILLION people calling Earth home.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Dirty farts?
Hey Dumbasses!
... we better not bother cutting emissions because theres other things we dont understand! run in fear! hide hide! ... its better to go ahead blind and ensure that what we are doing damages the world we have to live in!
The emission of CO2 from soil has in fact NOT eliminated the benefit of the UK cutting their emissions.
The soil did not start emitting CO2 in 1990. It has been emitting CO2 all along.
The UK has still in fact reduced its overall emissions from industrial sources by the same amount, they just weren't aware of how big the rest of the CO2 pie was.
What a piece o crap article
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Ratio of carbon to hydrogen in liquid fuels is about 1:2. The ratio in coal is about 0.6:1. Since carbon weighs 12 and hydrogen weighs 1 we get 12/14 of liquid fuel is carbon by weight and (0.6*12)/(0.6*12+1) of coal is carbon by weight.
CO2 has an atomic weight of 44 so we get one tonne of oil * 44/14 makes 3.1428 tonnes of CO2. This is almost pi tonnes I guess. In addtion we get 18/14 = 1.2857 tonnes of water.
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Now what needs to be recognized is that CO2 levels during the Ordovician were 13x to 19x higher than now and the earth cooled by about an average of 22C. This demonstrates that the CO2 levels at over 5000 PPM are not enough to warm the planet out of an ice age. In fact CO2 levels of 5000++ PPM are not enough to KEEP the planet from going into an ice age. When we go into an ice age we lose large amounts of water vapour and thus it is much easier to keep the planet out of an ice age than to lift it from an ice age.
Water vapour in the tropics literally is 80,000 PPM and it really is many times more powerful as a green house gas than CO2. Water vapour levels over a ice sheet are practically zero.
So CO2 is being given a bad name by people who know very little and do bad science.
About all an increase in CO2 will render on the planet is the ability for plants to grow a little faster. If course there are biologists such as David Suzuki who have suggested the increase in CO2 will overwhelm the ability of the plant life on the earth to absorb it.
How stupid. He must have done at least some plant physiology in his undergraduate years and if so he will know that standard green house practice is to increase CO2 levels to increase growth rates.
The truth is that photosynthesis evolved about 3 billion years ago and at that time the CO2 levels were about 20% of the atmosphere. 20% is about 200,000 PPM
The headline for this posting (Earth Releases More CO2 ...) illustrates why discussions about the theory of global warming are often so wrong-headed and confused. The reported data is about CO2 emissions in the UK, not Earth in toto. With a few words, these results are scaled-up to the whole planet!
Consider evidence the North American continent (and that includes a lot of guilty emitters) is on balance a carbon sink, based on data that's way more justifiable than most global temperature trend studies. Why? In part, in the States, we've been reforesting. In a generation, the USA will have as many trees as when the Pilgrims arrived.
Yes, I don't think smog is good. I don't think diesel fumes that give urban children asthma are good. But the environment qua religion and what's become the faith-based doctrine of global warming will seriously bias and waste resources dealing with the problems we can solve.