Record Atmospheric CO2 Increase Actually 2nd Year In A Row - New Scientist

[hatrack]

EDIT

"Recordings from a volcano-top observatory, NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory on Hawaii, showed carbon dioxide levels had risen to an average of about 376 parts per million (ppm) for 2003.

This is 2.5 ppm up from the average for 2002. It is not the highest leap in year-on-year atmospheric carbon dioxide levels recorded by NOAA. But it is the first to be sustained, with 2002 levels up 2.5 ppm from 2001. This year-on-year hike is considerably larger than the average annual increase of about 1.5 ppm seen over the last few decades says Pieter Tans, chief scientist at NOAA's climate monitoring and diagnostic lab in Boulder, Colorado, US. "The big picture is that carbon dioxide is continuing to go up," said NOAA's Russell Schnell, speaking to Associated Press. Other NOAA scientists suggest that economic development in China and India, which leads to increased fuel use, could be a key factor.

EDIT

Charles Keeling at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, US, notes that the rate of carbon dioxide "does fluctuate up and down a bit". However, he notes that global warming itself could increase the amount of carbon dioxide released from the oceans and soil. "People are worried about feedbacks," he says.

When the US team started recording atmospheric carbon dioxide in the late 1950s, levels were around 315 ppm and have risen ever since."

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http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994802

[whistle]

1. It seems that the world's glacier ice-packs are melting and receeding...

...at record paces. This process is releasing both carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide gases that have been trapped in the ice for centuries. So this is having a multiplier affect. The more CO2 that is added to the atmosphere, the more global warming that occurs, the more glacier ice that melts which releases bound up CO and CO2 which in turn both adds to the greenhouse effect and poisons the air that we breath. Way to go Dubya! dumb sh*t:dunce:

[earthman dave]

2. How much vegetation have we lost in the past couple of years?

I'm probably very wrong, but here goes. The amazon rainforest, for instance, removes a massive amount of CO2 from the atmosphere. With projected changes in rainfall patterns, a lot of forest areas are going to get a lot drier, thus turning to grassland/savannah. If this happens, there will be a lot less "scrubbing capacity", and the rate of increase of atmospheric CO2 will appear to accelerate, even if we're putting out the same amount. (IIRC, about half of our CO2 ouput is sequestered in this way, but that figure could be way off, I heard it on a TV program somewhen.)

On edit: changed ambiguous wording

[Dogmudgeon]

3. Some rambling thoughts about this

Levels were still only around 330 ppm into the 1970s. With a positive feedback loop, our next major study will be to determine when the braking mechanisms kick in. As it is, I think we are at an all-time high CO2 level. To find higher levels, I think you have to look at data from before the Permian extinction. Even as recently as five years ago, you only had to go back to the K-T event 65 MYA.

We're in the early stages of a major extinction event right now; it's being called The Sixth Extinction after the name of a book on the topic. There have been five previous major extinctions, and at least three were associated with probable asteroid/comet strikes. There are at least two other recent threads about it, since a team in the UK published a major study recently documenting large declines in the populations of several species of plants and animals alike.

FWIW, I do not think that vegetation sequesters nearly as much CO2 as one of the posts indicates. I think the major carbon sink is actually the ocean. However, I could easily be wrong about it, so if someone can expand on this point, I'd be grateful.

--bkl

[phantom power]

4. I don't see how...

I don't see how anyone can argue that land-plants will alleviate this problem. Mainly because every year we cut down more and more of them. If the total area populated by plants decreases every year, how can anyone argue that they will be able to sequester an increasing amount of carbon?

The only way it could conceivably happen is if the remaining vegetation increases in size and/or density, enough to make up the difference. But that doesn't seem very plausible.