CO2 Levels Reach 400ppm at Mauna Loa For First Time On Record 497
Titus Andronicus writes "Today, NOAA reported, 'On May 9, the daily mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, surpassed 400 parts per million for the first time since measurements began in 1958.' For comparison, over the last 800,000 years, CO2 has ranged from roughly 180 ppm to 280 ppm. 'For the entire period of human civilization, roughly 8,000 years, the carbon dioxide level was relatively stable near that upper bound. But the burning of fossil fuels has caused a 41 percent increase in the heat-trapping gas since the Industrial Revolution, a mere geological instant, and scientists say the climate is beginning to react, though they expect far larger changes in the future.' The last time Earth had 400 ppm was probably more than 3 megayears ago."
LOL (Score:2, Interesting)
Megayears? Someone trying to sound smarter than they are?
Re:queue the denialists! (Score:3, Interesting)
You are kind of right, but you might be duped.
You or me, hopping along minding our own business, looking for locally produced green alternatives is a drop in a bucket. Meanwhile they are destroying the planet for more profit.
The ones profiting from fucking up the planet are to blame. They have, however, managed to school us into accepting their reality - that we all are in control, individually.
They've taught us, through millions of 30 second tv-spots and with a little help from collaborators, that their world - the "free" market economy is somehow normal and natural, a basic truth and not an ideology of greed and lying and cold blooded disdain for human weakness while every other ideology, of compassion and sharing, for example, is old-fashioned and silly.
"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist."
So yes, one should do something. And living lean and green is a good thing, but, off the top of my head; getting organized (contact your local anarchist chapter), throwing stones, pestering your local politicians, eating the rich, fucking shit up or getting into politics are probably more effective avenues.
The CO2 change IS NOT 40%! (Score:1, Interesting)
PPM stands for PARTS PER MILLION. What we are talking about here is a change of 0.00012, or 1.2% of 1% of the atmosphere's gaseous composition. Climate hypochondriacs would have us believe that the atmospheric system is so precarious that a 0.00012 change in gas composition creates observable temperature results. Keep in mind that the CO2 effects are dwarfed by the oscillations of the major climate change gas, water vapor. There is simply no scientific evidence that CO2 changes of these tiny amounts quantitatively changes temperature in a world-wide system that has so many variables that no computational model today can hope to cope with.
Re:CO2 at an active volcano? Who wudda thot? (Score:3, Interesting)
The annual cycle in CO2 is due to springtime uptake of carbon by plants and autumn release of CO2 as leaves fall and photosynthesis shuts down. The paleoclimatic delay between temperature and CO2 concentrations is characteristic of a positive feedback in the system.
Re:queue the denialists! (Score:5, Interesting)
As pointed out by Lionel Dricot at http://ploum.net/post/the-cost-of-being-convinced [ploum.net], there is a cost of changing your position. A large number of climate deniers have invested themselves in the position they have taken, and unless they can find a benefit to changing their position that outweighs the investment they have made, they are likely to stand firm in their state of denial.
Potentially a far more useful technique, than bashing them over the head with the facts, is to start by having them review the facts surrounding the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, and then ask them to provide proposals as to why those levels have changed in the timeframe they have. That engages them in the process of actually doing science, as once they have proposed a hypothesis as to what may be causing an increase in CO2, those hypotheses can be tested. (I.e. it's the destruction of the rainforest - what does satellite data show about the circulation of O2 generated in the rainforest? It tends to stay in the area of the rainforests. Volcanoes emit CO2! Have we seen a tremendous increase in volcanic activity in the past century? No. Etc.) Start getting them to invest in looking at possibilities that can be tested, rather than having them try to change their minds based on decisions they have invested in.
Nah, it probably won't work, but it seems to me to be better than trying to sit and debate the topic with people who've come to the table already decided that no matter what the logic of proof that's provided, they are not going to change their position.
Re:queue the denialists! (Score:2, Interesting)
Climate Change denial arises from the same mechanism.
We could also speak of the original sin "mechanism" inherent in "climate change" (otherwise know as "anthropogenic global warming"). We should consider the near religious faith that we are bad and need to sacrifice to become better. I bet that is comforting too, but it is much of the current problem as the alleged denial you speak of. It seems imprudent to me to speak only of the dogma of one side of a complex discussion while ignoring the dogma of the other side.
What bothers me is that AGW mitigation advocates have yet to justify their position. Sure, for the most part we believe that there is some cost to AGW. But for the most part we also believe there is some cost to mitigating the effects of AGW. To say that AGW is bad and we will need to do something about that, is in error unless one has a good idea that the benefits of such an approach outweigh its costs. Such cost/benefit analysis should be the core of our arguments about this subject.
Re: Why not? This proves Warmists are wrong. (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting, I hadn't thought about soil erosion. What I was thinking about was rock weathering where CO2 is consumed by silicate weathering which results in calcium carbonate. This page shows it pretty well, http://dilu.bol.ucla.edu/home.html [ucla.edu]. There are vast amounts of carbon sequestered as calcium carbonate, maybe half that has ever been released from the mantle. Wiki mentions that erosion also transports dissolved CO2 to the ocean where various organisms convert it to calcium carbonate, think shells falling to the bottom of the ocean to form limestone.
In geological time frames this has a large impact on global climate. When the continents are in one mass there is little rainfall in the interior and little erosion. Global CO2 levels increase along with temperature. And the opposite also happens, lots of continents, especially with mountain ranges in the right places so lots of rainfall on land causing erosion and CO2 levels go down. This is perhaps the current situation.
Re:queue the denialists! (Score:3, Interesting)
For example, more people die from cold than heat. [heartland.org] And longer growing seasons in a warmer earth more than offset the reduced arability due to small temperature excursions. Adaptation is required, to be sure, but I bet that's way, way cheaper than the cost of trying to alter climate change, which may well not be anthropomorphic.