Points to consider: The increase in CO2 content of the atmosphere does not equate to the same proportional yield increase. It is less efficient at higher concentration, like marginal returns decline on subsequent increased supply. The economy gets better worldwide while the yield of citrus will marginally increase, but at what price?

Joe


CO2 in air grows fast: study
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071022/sc_afp/usscienceclimate;_ylt=AtiTVTc2mWFSVBvn3ZtJe2hpl88F

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Economic growth has made carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increase much faster than expected, as trees and oceans struggle to absorb the greenhouse gas, scientists said in a study published Monday.
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"Atmospheric carbon dioxide growth has increased 35 percent faster than expected since 2000," said a statement from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), one of the bodies involved in the research.

Inefficient use of fuels increased CO2 by 17 percent, while the other 18 percent was due to a decline in the efficiency of natural "sinks," the forests and seas that soak up the gas from the atmosphere, it said.

"Fifty years ago, for every tonne of CO2 emitted, 600 kilograms (1,300 pounds) were removed by natural sinks. In 2006 only 550 kilograms were removed per tonne and that amount is falling," said the study's lead author, Pep Canadell of the Global Carbon Project, in a statement.

"The proportion of carbon dioxide remaining in the atmosphere after vegetation and the oceans absorb what they can has escalated over the past 50 years, showing a decrease in the planet's ability to absorb anthropogenic (human-made) emissions."

Almost 10 billion tons of carbon were emitted worldwide in 2006 -- 35 percent more than in 1990, the study found. The landmark Kyoto Protocol agreement committed countries to cut world greenhouse gas emissions five percent below the 1990 level by 2012.

"Improvements in the carbon intensity of the global economy have stalled since 2000 after improving for 30 years, leading to the unexpected growth of atmospheric CO2," the BAS said.

"The decline in global sink efficiency suggests that stabilization of atmospheric CO2 is even more difficult to achieve than previously thought," said one of the study's authors, Corinne Le Quere, in the BAS statement.

The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.

Most of the authors are members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Nobel Prize-winning United Nations body which has made key reports on climate change for world leaders.

The CO2 content of the atmosphere is 4 percent. According to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) the man made portion of the CO2 is only 3 percent of the 4 percent, which equals to a mere 0.12 percent. See the IPPCC for confirmation. Lastly trees and oceans don't struggle, they just exist. As this type of thread tends to become quite active by certain supporters, I do not plant to revisit this thread. Take care.

The actual physical chemistry is quite straightforward. Solubility of gasses like carbon dioxide decreases with increasing temperature. If average surface temperature of all earth's ocean have increased, naturally so the decrease of rate of absorption of gasses. Carbon dioxide must first gets dissolved before they can be used up by algae and aquatic plants. We have more frequent and larger dead zones due to increased water temperature.

Regardless of personal opinions, actual scientific data, their values to appropriate datafield should be considered carefully.

Joe


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21423872/

Study: Warming is stronger, happening sooner
Higher C02 emissions from fossil fuels, and weaker Earth, cited as reasons

The Southern Ocean off Antarctica accounts for 15 percent of Earth's carbon sinks, which absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But a new study found that the ocean, as well as landmasses, are less able to absorb CO2 than in the past.

Just a days after the Nobel prize was awarded for global warming work, an alarming new study finds that warming signals are stronger, and happening sooner than expected, due to increased human emissions of carbon dioxide and an Earth less able to absorb them.

Carbon dioxide emissions were 35 percent higher in 2006 than in 1990, a much faster growth rate than anticipated, researchers reported in Tuesday’s edition of the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Increased industrial use of fossil fuels coupled with a decline in the ability of land and oceans to absorb CO2 were listed as causes of the increase.
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The changes “characterize a carbon cycle that is generating stronger-than-expected and sooner-than-expected climate forcing,” the researchers wrote.

“The new twist here is the demonstration that weakening land and ocean sinks are contributing to the accelerating growth of atmospheric CO2,” said co-author Chris Field, director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University.

The researchers said that human-induced warming had caused changes in wind patterns over the Southern Ocean that brought carbon-rich water toward the surface, reducing the ocean’s ability to absorb excess CO2 from the atmosphere.

On land, where plant growth is the major mechanism for soaking up CO2, droughts have curbed that ability, they stated.

Ocean sink 'really shocking'
Two climate researchers not involved with the study called it significant.

The “paper raises some very important issues that the public should be aware of," said Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "Namely that concentrations of CO2 are increasing at much higher rates than previously expected and this is in spite of the Kyoto Protocol that is designed to hold them down in western countries.”

Alan Robock, associate director of the Center for Environmental Prediction at Rutgers University, added that “what is really shocking is the reduction of the oceanic CO2 sink” —meaning the ability of the ocean to absorb carbon dioxide, removing it from the atmosphere.

The researchers blamed that reduction on changes in wind circulation, but Robock said he also thinks rising ocean temperatures reduce the ability to take in carbon dioxide.

“Think that a warm Coke has less fizz than a cold Coke,” he said.

Carbon dioxide is the leading “greenhouse gas,” so named because their accumulation in the atmosphere can help trap heat from the sun, causing potentially dangerous warming of the planet.

While most atmospheric scientists accept the idea, finding ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has been a political problem because of potential effects on the economy. Earlier this month, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and former Vice President Al Gore for their work in calling attention to global warming.

“It turns out that global warming critics were right when they said that global climate models did not do a good job at predicting climate change,” Robock said. “But what has been wrong recently is that the climate is changing even faster than the models said. In fact, Arctic sea ice is melting much faster than any models predicted, and sea level is rising much faster than IPCC previously predicted.”

Will future repeat recent past?
According to the new study, carbon released from burning fossil fuel and making cement rose from 7.0 billion metric tons per year in 2000 to 8.4 billion metric tons in 2006. A metric ton is 2,205 pounds.

The growth rate increased from 1.3 percent per year in 1990-1999 to 3.3 percent per year in 2000-2006, the researchers added.

Trenberth noted that carbon dioxide is not the whole story — methane emissions have declined, so total greenhouse gases are not increasing as much as carbon dioxide alone. Also, he added, other pollution plays a role by cooling.

There are changes from year to year in the fraction of the atmosphere made up of carbon dioxide and the question is whether this increase is transient or will be sustained, he said.

“The theory suggests increases in (the atmospheric fraction), as is claimed here, but the evidence is not strong,” Trenberth said.

The paper looks at a rather short time to measure a trend, Robock added, “but the results they get certainly look reasonable, and much of the paper is looking at much longer trends.”

The research was supported by Australian, European and other international agencies.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This graph do not makes me feeling good:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/sea.ice.anomaly.timeseries.jpg

"There are enormous quantities of naturally occurring greenhouse gasses trapped in ice-like structures in the cold northern muds and at the bottom of the seas. These ices, called clathrates, contain 3,000 times as much methane as is in the atmosphere. Methane is more than 20 times as strong a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide."

"In total, it is estimated there could be as much as 450 billion tonnes of methane and carbon dioxide trapped in the world's permafrost."

Millet, Either your source is wrong or you missed a decimal point somewhere. The normal level of CO2 during warm periods is approximately 280 ppm or 0.028 % (one part per thousand is 0.1%).

The current level of CO2 is approximately 400 ppm or 0.04 %. The difference is pretty much the result of human activity--burning of fossil fuels or cutting of rainforest. That is about 25 to 30% of what is in the atmosphere.

That is not the scary part-- We are headed toward 750 to 800 ppm by the middle of the century and 1100 to 1200 ppm by the end of the century---a calculation based purely on input minus output. That will be 300% or 3 times the highest natural levels in the past 650,000 years.

That's scary indeed Ivica. Thanks for showing the graph. You have to magnify the picture to get a better resolution, usually by right clicking on it. When looking at the graph from start and scroll all the way to the right, the last 5 years on the graph shows a trend of seemingly no return to the mean values, and that is very scary.

Some people would argue that the ice and methane from those clathrates are in nature and so are natural. But even such tiny percentage in the balance could be the tipping point to runaway conditions. I believe we are in a point of going into a positive loop of compounding the methane and carbon dioxide content of our atmosphere based on the graph. In this case, there is no need for man's contribution anymore, it could be a run-away process unless dramatic measures are taken.

The increase in the greenhouse gasses that we have started could trigger the melting of some of these calthrates and the permafrosts would then release methane and carbon dioxide. Evidences point to the fact that the timberlines are moving towards the poles, the ice caps melting in record numbers, and the permafrosts are starting to melt, starting the "natural" releases of trapped methane and carbon dioxide. That in turn will increase the average global atmospheric temperature which in turn will increase the rate of melting and release of the trapped gasses. In modeling parlance, this is a classic positive feedback loop and it explains the exponential phase of the initial increases. It would of course stop in a classic logarithmic decay when the sources are exhausted. The amount of gasses from these processes could dwarf all of mankind's emissions combined through all history, and yet technically, this type of release that we have triggered is considered "natural" by some of us.

And indeed it happened in the past, the cause of which was triggered by volcanic activities or meteorite impact or both. This has caused the great global massive extinction of various species and the rapid forming of new ones several hundred thousand years in the process called the great extinction and speciation events, and it could happen again. This time, triggered by mankind. Some of us would still survive this, many species would die off and new ones formed, but at what cost? Are we ready to face this coming event? I know it won't be in my lifetime, and shouldn't I care? The earth will equilibriate once more after another episode of extinction and then speciation. Hopefully, it could lead to evolution of a more sensible and intelligent human species, one that is a lot wiser than the fools we currently are as a selfish species. I hope I am proven wrong that we are not fools and as a species could do something about this.

ivica wrote:

This graph do not makes me feeling good: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/sea.ice.anomaly.timeseries.jpg "There are enormous quantities of naturally occurring greenhouse gasses trapped in ice-like structures in the cold northern muds and at the bottom of the seas. These ices, called clathrates, contain 3,000 times as much methane as is in the atmosphere. Methane is more than 20 times as strong a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide." "In total, it is estimated there could be as much as 450 billion tonnes of methane and carbon dioxide trapped in the world's permafrost."

Here's the latest report about how hot temperature could cause massive extinction:

link

I stand by what I wrote. Check the IPCC. Lastly, according to the IPCC the rise in the average temperature of the world over the past 100 year period is a mere 1 C (one) degree centigrade.

There is an interesting article that debunks many of the anthropogenic causes of global warming at the site below. I notice that the environmental impact reports crossing my desk for new developments in California now have to address their CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions. It's amazing that with so much uncertainty and disagreement in the scientific community that the greenhouse gas theory is taken as gospel.

http://www.oism.org/pproject/GWReview_OISM300.pdf

Phillip

As to the source being anthropogenic or natural is very arbitrary classification. For example, fires in San Diego, one can argue that it is natural because the wood frames are from natural trees. Forest fires set accidentally or intentionally are natural and thus are not anthropogenic. Fossil fuels came from plants and are therefore natural. So man made contribution is zero. If you consider them all to be man-made, they are zero percent based on the earth's total weight.

The most credible people are those with the best predictions in their models. Almost all of our scientific theories that we practiced today and woven itself into many practical technological advances are based on mathematical models of one form or another. The laws of Newton and that of Einstein's theory are mathematical models and they are the best predictors in their own context. The same is true with many global climatic models. With today's super computers and more credible data gathering, these models are being refined into better predictions of the one giant unreplicated experiment that we are doing now by overloading our atmosphere with anthropogenic pollutants like never seen before in geologic time scale.

Modeling as a tool allows you to simultaneously run thousands of interacting variables beyond the simplistic way of looking at effects of single components. No matter the complexity, it is the best predicting model that are seen to be the most credible one.

Today, more than 95% of our best scientists agree on the effects of greenhouse gasses and 99% of our credible scientists agree on global climatic change that is underway. I admit they have much more better minds and degrees in their respective fields than I do. The comparison is like getting the opinions of 100 doctors. 95 of them would say that you are in the process of developing devastating illness from the symptoms that are underway and only of them would say to ignore those symptoms as they will pass away when your body adapts. Who would you believe?

I can understand that the cheapest way to approach this problem is to do nothing, simply shrug it off. I sometimes find myself in that position of diagnosed illnesses amongst some of my poor relatives in the Philippines who can't afford the remedies, they have no choice but to shrug it off. But if you can do something about it, shall we just enjoy and shrug it off?

It is now a matter of preparation for the inevitable. Can we challenge the nay-sayers to be responsible 50 or 100 years from now, can we ask their future generations to pay up for the mistakes of shrugging off the threat?

All just speculations, nothing to be taken personal.

Phillip, Amen. However, ever since Adam & Eve there have always been people who forecast death and doom for mankind.

Phillip, the article you posted the link to is published in the Journal of Physicians and Surgeons.

Why would an article on climate change be published there instead of a more related science journal? I can only wonder if it was to get around the peer review process it would have encountered in a more relavant journal.