CO2 Puzzle

1. Your first graph is total carbon emissions, which will include all of CO2, CH4, CFCs, HFCs, etc. The second graph is only CO2.

2. The earth's carbon cycle is still taking up about half of the carbon we put up, and it's the remaining half that is accumulating the atmosphere and causing a radiative effect.

 

Also, if you look over the same range in both figures, the first one is also roughly linear.

 

The atmospheric CO2 graph doesn't look linear to me. It's accelerating. See, it goes up 100ppm in the first 10 years, and maybe 180ppm in the last 10. Look at it from an angle, and the curve is obvious. It could easily be a close-up of an exponential curve - it's over a very short timespan.

And looking at the emission curve, if you just look at the 1960-2000 region covered by the first graph, that's pretty linear, or even flattening off (I've heard the flattening off attributed to the collapse of the USSR).

On the other hand, the graphs are looking at different things - the first is a rate, the second is a total amount. If the rate were to stay constant, the CO2 might go up linearly. If the rate went up linearly, the CO2 might go up quadratically.

Mainly what you're seeing there is a difference in scale. What you need to do is rescale the emission curve to the right time period, then convert it to a total cumulative emissions, rather than emission rates.

 

Not only is just CO2 on one chart compared to total carbon on the other. It is also scale
Total carbon in on a 200 year scale and CO2 is on just 40 years scale chart.

Its not apples to apples.

I am not saying your wrong, it just you do not have data on both charts matched so
you can use them to work input points of the data.

Try some internet mining for data, its can be done.

Good luck on your search and keep looking.

 

QED. I said that in post #2.

Really? Where have you looked? Because the fact that only about 45% of anthropogenic emissions stays aloft is fairly well known. Otherwise we'd have CO2 concentrations at about 425 ppmv today!

This is math anyone can do: the data behind the graphs you cite indicate 224.3 GtC in the 1960-2003 timeframe. At the same time, the Atmospheric CO2 went up 59.27 ppmv. It only takes about 126 GtC to account for that increase, which means the ~99 GtC extra we put up in the air was taken in by natural sinks.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Mar 16 2007, 06:24 PM) [snapback]406903[/snapback]</div>

Totally wrong comparison.

The point is the rate of increase. In 1960-70 it was going up maybe 100ppm a decade. By 1995-2005 it was going up about 180ppm a decade. So the 160% increase of emission rate goes with an 80% increase of CO2 growth rate. As a hand-wavey check, acknowledging that we're looking at we're looking at quite tight timescales, and haven't tried smoothing the data, that passes the smell test.

Try thinking about it in terms of money. If you start off with $300,000 in the bank with a salary of $25,000, and then you get a payrise to $65,000, you don't expect your savings to suddenly jump to $800,000, do you? But your savings will certainly start going up faster.

Do you now understand why your comparing the wrong things?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TeeSeeJay @ Mar 16 2007, 09:45 PM) [snapback]406954[/snapback]</div>

Exactly. Most of the rest is being absorbed by the ocean. The ocean is getting measurably more acidic, with a resulting impact on sealife. If that keeps going, there will be a whole other set of problems on top of warming.

Maybe next we'll see ocean acidification denialists.

Unfortunately, as the earth warms, the ocean will begin to belch its CO2 back out again...

 

No problemo:

If you use this link: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/glo.htm you can select "digital data" to see the underlying data points, which you can copy/paste into Excel for manipulation.

I used this link: http://www.radix.net/~bobg/faqs/scq.CO2rise.html for the numbers to determine 2.12 GtC = 1 ppmv CO2 increase.

Finally, I used this link: http://www.data360.org/dataset.aspx?Data_Set_Id=403 for the actual CO2 ppmv values.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Mar 15 2007, 11:57 PM) [snapback]406652[/snapback]</div>

Tim, I'm at the girlfriends house and getting ready to head out but I promise to lookinto this post as wellas your "watervapor" post in the other thread.They both look interesting.

As for a quick idea on this one:

Could it be the natural buffering system ofthe earth is changing the CO2 buildup curve? IE cations are combined to form other compounds and buffer the CO2. IE Ca combining with the CO2 and forming CACO3 or Carbonic acid or any number of organic chemical reactions. Obviously this is the natural way we recycle CO2 but there are cases where this buffering system loses enough cations and it cannot effectively buffer and we get acidification like we are seeing in the oceans and in lakes and streams allover the world, especially the eastern U.S..

So in essense my uneducated guess would be that the excess CO2 is not showing up on the "radar" because it is being used up or transformed by this buffering system and wearing it down faster than it is going to be able to recharge itself. Remember what I was saying about ocean acidification and the problems that can present with CO2 uptake in calcifying organisism.

Ok gotta go, gonna get in trouble. LOL

*edit* her computer is so slow it didn't show all these responses before I typed all this out.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Mar 17 2007, 01:33 PM) [snapback]407198[/snapback]</div>

If i recall my calculus, you can calculate the accumulated emissions from the area under the graph. Or just add up the heights off all the yearly data plots as best as you can read them from the graph.