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Earth's Carbon Dioxide Levels Reach Highest Point In 800,000 Years (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Washington Post: For the first time since humans have been monitoring, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have exceeded 410 parts per million averaged across an entire month (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), a threshold that pushes the planet ever closer to warming beyond levels that scientists and the international community have deemed "safe." The reading from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii finds that concentrations of the climate-warming gas averaged above 410 parts per million throughout April. The first time readings crossed 410 at all occurred on April 18, 2017, or just about a year ago. Carbon dioxide concentrations -- whose "greenhouse gas effect" traps heat and drives climate change -- were around 280 parts per million circa 1880, at the dawn of the industrial revolution. They're now 46 percent higher. According to Scripps Institute of Oceanography, this amount is the highest in at least the past 800,000 years. "We keep burning fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide keeps building up in the air," said Scripps scientist Ralph Keeling, who maintains the longest continuous record of atmospheric carbon dioxide on Earth. "It's essentially as simple as that."
These Chinese hoaxers are going too far.
Prevailing winds bring in fresh, well mixed, air from the oceans and pushes the locally generated CO2 away, whether from cities or volcanoes away from the observatory. This link has more details, and included results from other measuring stations. https://skepticalscience.com/M...
Volcanic eruptions are less than 2% of emitted CO2. That's how big the fossil fuel impact is.
It's possible that the eruption hastened this particular record, but only by the matter of days or months - you can see the graph in the linked article, it's been pretty smooth for decades.
Obviously, the climate ran away and killed all life on Earth.
This is bad news among good news. In general, CO2 output levels have been flat or going down in both the US and some other countries for a few years. 2018 is actually the first year in the last 4 where the total CO2 production of the US are going up, while they declined for the previous few years https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-natgas-eia-steo/update-1-u-s-carbon-emissions-seen-at-25-year-low-in-2017-idUSL1N1J311B. But we need to do a lot more. So what can you do to help?
There are three main aspects, personal, political and charitable:
In terms of personal lifestyle differences, the biggest options are to eat less meat and to use a personal car less. If you live somewhere where public transit is an option, you can massively cut down on your carbon footprint by simply using public transit. Not everyone has that option, since you may live somewhere where public transit isn't available or may have a job or family that necessitates getting a car, in which case, if you get a new car, make sure to buy an electric or hybrid. Also in terms of personal activity, one can keep the air conditioning or heating in one's house at not as extreme temperatures or one can better insulate one's house. If one is somewhere installing solar on one's home either for electricity or just for water heating then do it. All these personal changes are also things which overall cause one to save money so there's good reason to do it..
Political change is also important. Much of Europe is taking sensible approaches to these issues (although Germany's anti-nuclear kick isn't helping) but the US is very much not so. In general, the Democrats have a much better record on climate issues and other environmental issues than the current Republicans. This means voting for Democratic candidates and donating to them is important.
In terms of charity, this is a really good way of effecting direct change. Two good options for solar are donating to Everybody Solar https://www.everybodysolar.org/ which gets solar panels for non-profits like museums and homeless shelters, and the Solar Electric Light Fund https://www.self.org/ who helps get solar panels for locations in the developing world. SELF's work is especially important because it helps to cut off the potential of rising carbon dioxide in the developing world even as it helps increase their economies. For wind power, I recommend donating to The New England Wind Fund https://www.massenergy.org/the-wind-fund. Also, helping buy carbon offsets is important. The most efficient way of offsetting carbon in terms of tons offset per a dollar spent is Cool Earth https://www.coolearth.org/. Every little bit helps.
Global warming isn't going to kill all life on earth. The tardigrades aren't even going to notice, given they can live in deep sea hydro-thermal vents and deep space.
Global warming is likely to cause severe water and food stress for humans, some regions are likely to become too hot & humid for humans to survive going outside. https://www.ucsusa.org/our-wor...
That's a mean way to describe Republicans. You apologize now!
Table-ized A.I.
Usually the changes have been gradual such that life had time to adjust. Humans especially may be sucker-punched by relatively rapid change.
Table-ized A.I.
The question is what is the impact of the associated methane leaks. Those 2% of CO2 reduction can easily be outweighed by methane leaks, which are a non-CO2 contribution to GHG emissions.
Ezekiel 23:20
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessm...
A bunch of graphs, data and projections say otherwise.
You really shouldn't feed the trolls. I noticed you logged in to comment, but the A/C fuckwit making the "socialist elite" comments prefers to remain anonymous.
There are also measuring stations in antarctica to give it backup. The one in Hawaii is the oldest (and is considered very reliable) so it is the most famous.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
There is no strong indication that it was significantly higher before then.
No strong indication?
Ezekiel 23:20
No, they're saying we don't have direct measurements from before the oldest ice core bores. 800kya is not the year they were higher.
Ezekiel 23:20
Methane degrades fairly quickly in the environment whereas co2 sticks around for a long time. That's why the worry focus is on co2.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Yes, but it apparently doesn't degrade quickly enough, to the extent that above, I think, 2% of leaks, it get worse than coal for a few decades or so.
Ezekiel 23:20
False dichotomy - there are people who outright think it doesn't exist, and people who think it is the impending apocalypse, then there are people who think it is serious, but are optimistic and think we are capable, and able, to find solutions, and have time to do it, as well as those who might believe climate change is real, but wonders about the nitty gritty, how those details are garnered, or conclusions are drawn - I.E ask questions in a reasonable manner, and many people who fall into choices other than those I mentioned.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
So obviously, what happened 800,000 years ago when the average CO2 levels were presumably higher than they are now?
800k is just the end of easy continuous direct CO2 observation from ice cores in their dataset.
You would have to go back a couple million years or more.
Ice ages happen on a timescale of tens of millions of years.
Actually we have had four glacial periods in the last million years.
While it doesn't address what CO2 comes from volcano's, but we can also tell what percent of CO2 is natural vs from burned fossil fuels using carbon isotope ratio from the atmosphere:
http://www.realclimate.org/ind...
Zero correlation between CO2 and temperature.
Like in this graph?
Ezekiel 23:20
Here is a chart.
You solved it Lynwood, well done. We can just turn the whole atmosphere into a giant outdoor office or classroom.
But where will we get all the desks? I suppose we could just cut down all the trees as well...
recent peer-reviewed data points to 1.3 to 1.6 deg K for doubling of CO2,
The study you linked to gives a 95% confidence range of 1.1 to 4.45. That is in line with other estimates. See also this overview: http://www.realclimate.org/ind...
Volcanoes are almost a measurement error these days.
I think he is referring to Kilauea, which is only 20 miles from Mauna Loa, where these CO2 measurements were taken.
But Kilauea wasn't erupting much in April. The new vents are not in Kilauea's main caldera, but are another 20 miles east in Pahoa, and the prevailing winds blow from NE to SW, which is out to sea, not up the slopes of Mauna Loa, which towers more than 9000 feet above the summit of Kilauea.
but IIRC volcanic events are responsible for a lot of CO2.
No they don't, and that is easy to google: https://www.scientificamerican...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Look at the longer trend, and you'll see no evidence of volcanic eruptions interfering with the data.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/...
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/...
Actually it is the opposite way around.
The correlation factor is greatly underestimated, that is why current trends are always at the upper edge of the spectrum the IPCC is publishing.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I'd wish it were a joke but it is not.
That's the effect of denuclearization: more coal. If they're using more coal, they are doing it wrong. It's foolish to compete nuclear vs renewables until the last coal plant and mine is eliminated permanently.
The Little Ice Age was not global.
So you think at 1200 parts per million you'll have headaches and feel tired?
Yes. In particular it is why there is a lot of ongoing effort on air circulation in schools, with a target in most nations closer to 600 or below, as higher levels affect learning.
Yes?
What's with all the anti-science ACs JAQing off in this thread.
Yes CO2 has been higher in the past, no all lfe didn't die then and no humans did't have a population of 7 billion wiht hundreds of trillions of dollars of infrastructure with a few meters of sea level.
Life will go on, but it won't be comfortable.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
No, ice cores go back about a million years. Sedimentation (chemical rock formation in water) goes far back. There is a big discrepancy in resolution with rock vs ice cores. Ice cores show us small changes over short periods (years in some cases). Sedimentation shows larger trends over large time scales (thousands of years).
But you are right, in geologic time CO2 is at a low in the past 800ky. Also note, that historically CO2 follows Temps.... i.e. empirically, CO2 isn't a climate driver.
I have a degree in geology, but the climate is not my field. I do think people should be paying more attention to historical geology and atmospheric physics than to climate models. Current climatology is plagued with the mantra of modeling. These models cannot describe past climate changes, which means they are of little use for predicting the future. Why do they stick to them? Because they have nothing else.
Maybe someone should stop cutting down the Amazon rainforest?
It's just a suggestion; feel free to put profit above everything else.
Requiem for the American Dream
Did you ever stop long enough to think that just maybe the rise in CO2 levels were part of a natural feedback
We know that the extra CO2 comes from burning fossil fuels. You can verify this for yourself by taking the published numbers for amounts of fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil) produced over the last century, and figuring out how much CO2 each produces, and then adding it all up. You'll get a number that's roughly twice the amount of extra CO2 in the atmosphere over the same time.
If you think it's a "natural feedback", then explain where this CO2 is actually coming from, and what happened to all the fossil CO2 we've produced.
Ugh no. The rise in co2 is not due to the plants. Well, not living ones. It is known how much co2 is USED by plants, and given off. In general, plants use Much more co2, than they give off. If not, then they would not have energy storage ( carbon converted to sugars ). Forest fires, volcanoes, etc give off co2, but known quantity. The problem is burning of fossil fuels esp from coal plants. Coal plants are #1 source of our burning fossil fuels and creating Co2. And as long as nations continue to build these out, it will continue to grow faster.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Ice core data shows a several-hundred-year lag between rising temperatures and higher CO2.
Rising temperature and higher CO2 form a mutual causal relationship. The path from CO2 to temperature is a lot quicker (few decades max), so you don't recognize it in the graphs.
I guess that in that case, I have to build that thing! Is this somehow about differential transmittance?
Ezekiel 23:20
Although there's no question that climate change in itself won't end all human life, it does lead to food stress and resource shortages leading to more mass migration, famine and war. It only takes one nuclear war triggering event to say no, human life won't go on. A more likely question is - will human civilisation survive? Maybe not a bad outcome for the planet, but not a good one for us.
Doubling the CO2 will add about 1.6 deg K to our temperature; will that be a disaster?
Basically, yes. This is because the change will be fast and because we've set up most of our entire global society (think the location of cities and of the most productive farming) to work well with temperatures (and sea level which is closely connected) as they currently are.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Also note, that historically CO2 follows Temps.... i.e. empirically, CO2 isn't a climate driver.
Except we know the current source of CO2 increases and it isn't temperatures. It's mostly due to human activities, burning fossil fuels, making cement, clearing land. There is no known temperature excursion in history that would account for an increase in CO2 to a level greater than it has been in at least 800,000 years and likely several millions of years.
The plant can and has been way warmer than currently. Yes. But during none of these times human tried to survive on it, that's gonna be a new one.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Gonna need more proof on this one. With governments pushing for carbon taxes how do we know this is legit?
Sorry I cant sign off on this bullshit.
More proof on the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere? It's something that has been measured for over 100 years and been measured continuously for over 50 years. It's currently being measured in dozens of places around the world and they're all pretty much in agreement. It's not that difficult to measure so if there were any shenanigans going on it would be quickly called out.
As far as carbon taxes go you can pay now to help mitigate the effects of global warming and the climate change it causes or you can pay later for the massive amount of adaption that will have to take place for adjusting to the effects. It's possible the effects could get bad enough to cause the collapse of our global civilization. How much would that cost you?
A carbon tax on electricity is just about the best way known to push business and consumers to transition over to cleaner energy. Far from worthless.
Is that the same China that reached peak coal back in 2013? That China? Or the one in your imagination that you keep talking about?
Ice core data shows a several-hundred-year lag between rising temperatures and higher CO2.
So where in the historical record is the spike in temperatures that is causing CO2 to rise to level not seen in over 800,000 years? If temperatures were hot enough to cause this exceptional rise in CO2 you'd think we would have noticed.
And more to the point how is it possible that human emissions which are more than twice the year to year increase in atmospheric CO2 levels are not the cause of the increase?
"Typical"* indoor ventilation is supposed to be designed to hold the indoor CO2 levels below 1,000 ppm, or, in more recent codes, designed to be no more than 700 ppm above the outdoor CO2 concentration.
But the CO2 measurement is just a surrogate for measurement of other indoor pollutants, and really only measures how much outdoor air you're providing compared to how much respiration is going on in the space.
*"Typical" in quotes, because most ventilation systems don't measure CO2 concentration, but are based on certain prescribed airflows, and also because some well-ventilated offices & classrooms will be well below 1,000 ppm and others will be well above.
Yeah, but it degrades into water and carbon dioxide.
If the general population in the United States actually cared and felt this was an important issue - then the Senate, House and Oval office wouldn't be run by people who adamantly scream this is a liberal hoax.
They are busy appointing judges who will rule in favor of the corporate oligarchy doing exactly what we're seeing: disincentivizing renewable energy, disemboweling clean air/water laws, doling out tax breaks to polluters, attacking scientific processes and thought, defunding education to eliminate critical thinking skills... and they are winning. Only 1/2 of Americans believe global warming is real. http://news.gallup.com/poll/20...
And other BS/disproven ideas are on rise - like Immunizations cause autism and the growth of flat earthers... Till we value and fund education and critical thinking, we're lost.
So I'm trying to understand why going from 400 to 410 is a "sucker punch".
You must not be trying very hard if you're confusing respiratory effects with climate change.
Another of your favourite lies Windy, I'm not surprised. Heaps of those were cancelled, like you already know.
Chinses coal has been going down, (slowly) I just showed you facts to show a very slight increase, after 3 years of decreases, yet you lie and say it's at record highs and rising over 5%.
Select region East asia
Select map China
Just look at Announced, pre-permit, permitted and construction.(even though a lot of them will be cancelled)
Notice that the total is way less than 700.(zoom all the way out to make it clearer)
Click on shelved, notice most of the map turned blue.
Click on retired, notice how there is a lot more green than red yellow as well.
Finally click on cancelled, and see how tiny the little red and yellow bits are that you keep getting your panties in a twist about.
No doubt whatsoever you will continue the lie that China is building 700 coal plants and not shutting down or replacing old ones.
Even less doubt you are too stupid to understand it's the amount of coal burned at the pants and not the total number of plants anyway that makes the CO2.
(If you want to, add in the brown and realise China has a fuck ton of coal plants, which is bad. But it's getting better. Like I already showed before coal peaked years ago in China) The point is not to claim China is clean, it's not, but to show Windy is a lying sack of shit, and he knows he is.
No model is provably right. However the behavior has a solid scientific explanation based on feedback loops and is not controversial. https://skepticalscience.com/c...
Chris Mesterharm
>Yes CO2 has been higher in the past, no all lfe didn't die then
Yeah...about that...