Carbon Pollution Touched 800,000 Year Record in 2016, WMO Says (bloomberg.com)

Carbon dioxide levels surged to their highest level in at least 800,000 years because of pollution caused by humans and a strong El Nino event, according to the World Meteorological Organization. From a report: Concentrations of the greenhouse gas increased at a record speed in 2016 to reach an average of 403.3 parts per million, up from 400 parts per million a year earlier, the WMO said in a statement on Monday warning of "severe ecological and economic disruptions." The WMO said the last time the Earth had a comparable concentration of CO2s, the temperature of the planet was 2 degrees to 3 degrees Celsius warmer and sea levels were 10 meters to 20 meters higher than now.

Comments

Re: Runaway effect? Nope.

[doctorvo]

The greenhouse effect is established science. Its basic physics than can be demonstrated in a laboratory. Adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere makes the greenhouse effect stronger.

True, but the effects are diminishing with increasing concentrations. That's because CO2 acts like an optical filter, and most of the radiation is already absorbed. So, if that basic physics was all there was to the science, we clearly wouldn't have to worry about carbon emissions at all.

In order to conclude that there is any significant danger from greenhouse gases, you have to run climate models that make various assumptions about positive feedback loops; those feedback loops are not "basic physics", can't be "demonstrated in a laboratory", and are largely speculative and unproven at this point. You also have to assume that there are no additional negative feedback loops to counteract the effects, again something we don't know.

It's dishonest for you and others to conflate the basic physics of the greenhouse effect with the speculative models involving assumptions about feedback that are used to argue for the need to reduce carbon emissions.

plus the relatively gradual nature of the changes allowed life more time to adapt. The present day greenhouse gas increases are much more abrupt compared with what's been observed in the past,

There is no way of determining how rapid changes were in the past, the record isn't detailed enough, so that statement has no scientific basis.

What we do know is that mammals and primates thrived at much higher CO2 concentrations than today, and that the climate was generally milder and wetter. So if you want to argue that high carbon concentrations are a problem, you need to address that issue as well, and you need to address it better than through fabrications ("more abrupt") and handwaving ("allowed life more time to adapt"), because that is neither scientific nor rational.