Climate Change?

[herbu]

Serious questions.

1. What % of the earth's CO2 occurs naturally from rotting vegetation, and how much is man-made?

2. Through history, which happens first: Increased temperature or Increased CO2 levels?

 

[KEW]

I'll be interested in seeing the responses.
I'm not sure they are questions that can be answered!
Our ability to measure CO2 levels is pretty recent , so I don't expect you will get anything definitive. That is one of the reasons Climate Change has been such a controversial topic.
Science and the statistics often used to determine the correlation between two factors is a system of "how likely" a cause results in the effect. 95% is the general standard of "proof".
So in congress if a scientist gives testimony, the question from a congressman (more likely from his advisor) who does not like a scientific conclusion is:
"Can you say with absolute certainty that yada yada yada?"
And any scientist would have to answer that with a "No"!

Fortunately, no one asked the day before Apollo13 launched if NASA could say with absolute certainty that the calculations to land and retrieve the lunar module were accurate!
(they turned out to be good enough, but the assumptions were definitely there)

 

[nbk13nw]

Agreed. From what I was able to ascertain it seems the percentage varies from just over 1% to 4% for human O2 contributions.

 

[shadyJ]

Ugh, I hope this thread doesn't become another dumpster fire, and I really ought to lock it before it turns into a bunch of dudes just trolling each other. Herbu, if you are sincerely interested in answers to these questions, why not ask actual scientists these questions instead of random people on an audio forum? What can we tell you that an expert couldn't? This tells me that you are more interested in arguing than actually becoming informed about this matter.

 

[bigkrazy155]

Ugh, I hope this thread doesn't become another dumpster fire, and I really ought to lock it before it turns into a bunch of dudes just trolling each other. Herbu, if you are sincerely interested in answers to these questions, why not ask actual scientists these questions instead of random people on an audio forum? What can we tell you that an expert couldn't? This tells me that you are more interested in arguing than actually becoming informed about this matter.

If you do this, please be sure to also lock the other dumpster fire threads.

 

[bigkrazy155]

I'm not sure they are questions that can be answered!

This FTW! Maybe "we" just try to act responsibly in a measured way...not destroy the economy or the earth?

Fortunately, no one asked the day before Apollo13 launched if NASA could say with absolute certainty that the calculations to land and retrieve the lunar module were accurate!
(they turned out to be good enough, but the assumptions were definitely there)

This is the second Apollo 13 reference of the day for me. I'm spooked.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Serious questions.

1. What % of the earth's CO2 occurs naturally from rotting vegetation, and how much is man-made?

2. Through history, which happens first: Increased temperature or Increased CO2 levels?

One important issue forgot to ask:
The rate of change.

By chance you asked Google?
Just one place, didn't read it
https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/9089/does-organic-decay-release-the-same-co2-as-burning

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=historical+climate+change+events&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart

https://www.britannica.com/science/climate-change/Abrupt-climate-changes-in-Earth-history

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_periods_and_events_in_climate_history (notice the time it took in the past vs today)

https://www.livescience.com/1292-history-climate-change-science.html

https://history.aip.org/climate/timeline.htm

https://skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm

Our input is sheer speculation compared to climate scientists input. Need to consult the peer journals unless one of us is a climate scientist with published peer papers.

 

[ski2xblack]

The IPCC reports are peer reviewed.

Yes, lock this crap up, lest audioholics forums become part of the denialists echo chamber of BS.

 

[KEW]

I did a quick search and came up with some interesting wording in the overview of an EPA report on greenhuse gases (which included CO2):

Greenhouse gases trap heat and make the planet warmer. Human activities are responsible for almost all of the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the last 150 years.1 The largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities in the United States is from burning fossil fuels for electricity, heat, and transportation.

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions

So, it appears the interest of the study is not what percentage is man made, but rather how much of the increase in the last 150 years is due to human activities!

Happily, I was mistaken in my earlier post. While direct measurement of CO2 levels is a recent ability, it has been established that reasonable estimates can be made from ice cores with the chart below showing data for a little over 2000 years published by the American Chemical Society.

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/greenhousegases/industrialrevolution.html

@mtrycrafts , I think the nearly vertical line on the right side of the chart above addresses the rate of change that you wanted to be included in the discussion!

Since red is CO2 and what appears to be the ambient, naturally occurring level of CO2 is about 280ppm and it is now at around 380ppm for an increase of 100ppm.

The earlier quote states that almost all of the increase of green house gasses is from human activities.
"Almost all" is rather vague, I would normally expect at least 90%, but we (or, at least I) do not know how that is broken down among the different greenhouse gasses, so lets just assume it is between 75% and 99% or between 75ppm and 99ppm.
That would mean the portion of the current level of CO2 due to human activity is 75/380 and 99/380 which converts to between 20% and 26%!

Please note the assumption I highlighted above. I don't know the real number. I believe my assumption is reasonable, but also believe more accurate info is available.

Also, I do not know that the relatively steady level of CO2 from the previous millennium is properly attributed exclusively to "rotting vegetation"!? So in that sense it may not properly answer your question.

HTH!

 

[Phase 2]

Umm, our Planet is billions of years old, we have rouge countries that want to blow up the only Planet that everyone who has ever lived on. With all the atom bomb and nuclear testing that has been done already plus all the poisons that's been dumped in the oceans one would think that the Planet is in a really bad shape already. It is! Thing is climate control is what it is, for what it's worth I think humans will go extinct. Planet in a few million years will heal itself like it always does and will be ok long after humans have destroyed each other.

 

[markw]

I'm waiting for them to make broccoli illegal,

https://www.forbes.com/sites/samlemonick/2017/09/29/scientists-underestimated-how-bad-cow-farts-are/#137549ee78a9

 

[Phase 2]

I'm waiting for them to make broccoli illegal,

https://www.forbes.com/sites/samlemonick/2017/09/29/scientists-underestimated-how-bad-cow-farts-are/#137549ee78a9

Nice!! Lol

 

[Irvrobinson]

I did a quick search and came up with some interesting wording in the overview of an EPA report on greenhuse gases (which included CO2):

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions

So, it appears the interest of the study is not what percentage is man made, but rather how much of the increase in the last 150 years is due to human activities!

Happily, I was mistaken in my earlier post. While direct measurement of CO2 levels is a recent ability, it has been established that reasonable estimates can be made from ice cores with the chart below showing data for a little over 2000 years published by the American Chemical Society.

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/greenhousegases/industrialrevolution.html

Since red is CO2 and what appears to be the ambient, naturally occurring level of CO2 is about 280ppm and it is now at around 380ppm for an increase of 100ppm.

The earlier quote states that almost all of the increase of green house gasses is from human activities.
"Almost all" is rather vague, I would normally expect at least 90%, but lets just assume it is between 75% and 99% or between 75ppm and 99ppm.
That would mean the portion of the current level of CO2 due to human activity is 75/380 and 99/380 which converts to between 20% and 26%!

Please note the assumption I highlighted above. I don't know the real number. I believe my assumption is reasonable, but also believe more accurate info is available.

Also, I do not know that the relatively steady level of CO2 from the previous millennium is properly attributed exclusively to "rotting vegetation"!? So in that sense it may not properly answer your question.

HTH!

Nice post, Kurt.

The confusing part is the reality of world politics. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the US is responsible for 15% of the fossil fuel related carbon emissions as of 2015:

https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2.html

And the US share has probably declined since then, as the rest of the world develops. It seems that if the US became a net zero carbon emitter the reduction would have little effect on global warming due to greenhouse gases. This makes me wonder how cost-effective expensive emission reductions will be, and I'm having trouble seeing the value in these trillion dollar plus "Green Deal" initiatives some candidates are proposing.

 

[KEW]

Nice post, Kurt.

The confusing part is the reality of world politics. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the US is responsible for 15% of the fossil fuel related carbon emissions as of 2015:

https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/science-and-impacts/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2.html

And the US share has probably declined since then, as the rest of the world develops. It seems that if the US became a net zero carbon emitter the reduction would have little effect on global warming due to greenhouse gases. This makes me wonder how cost-effective expensive emission reductions will be, and I'm having trouble seeing the value in these trillion dollar plus "Green Deal" initiatives some candidates are proposing.

To your point:

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data

The major initiative I am aware of to solve global warming is the carbon tax/credit! That is not a tax you or I would pay directly to the government. It is a tax where it adds more expense when an item or service is not clean (like coal) and reduces expense when an item or service is clean (they sell their carbon credits to the other company). Obviously, the increased costs will be passed on to the customers in most cases and I am less optimistic that the savings will be passed on to the customers (but that is a discussion of business philosophy/ethics, not CO2). It seems like a pretty good system for our Capitalist Society which allows the market to grow in a predictable way (as the program is phased in).

You can take the "lowest common denominator" approach of assuming China and other less developed countries will not improve their emissions which seems to put us on route for a dystopian future, and you can believe "therefore, why bother" which puts us in a race to that dystopian future. However, if we continue to see increases in extreme weather events (it has been reasonably quiet thus far this year, but I don't know squat about hurricanes et al) more people will get on board and the countries that have a mature system for reducing greenhouse emissions will have the technology that is in demand. But doing nothing seems unconscionable unless you really think global warming is totally bogus!

But remember our government is one of few that is actually not on board with taking action on climate change. Witness the commitment corporations (especially the auto industry) has made to eliminating the combustion engine. These are the same companies that fought CAFE reductions for so many years, I don't think they would be so quick to change unless they have people who understand how to interpret the science of global warming and think it is the future of their industry (or maybe I should say humanity).

Please don't use you distaste for "the Green New Deal" as motivation to ignore the problem!

 

[gene]

Umm, our Planet is billions of years old, we have rouge countries that want to blow up the only Planet that everyone who has ever lived on. With all the atom bomb and nuclear testing that has been done already plus all the poisons that's been dumped in the oceans one would think that the Planet is in a really bad shape already. It is! Thing is climate control is what it is, for what it's worth I think humans will go extinct. Planet in a few million years will heal itself like it always does and will be ok long after humans have destroyed each other.

Yep agreed 100% There is no doubt we are the major contributor to the increased CO2 since the industrial revolution. I doubt we will ever slow this down given human nature of greed and only acting when a crisis is reached. Since half our country is in denial of the science, and big oil spends billions confusing the science much like big tobacco did years ago when a link was reached between cigarette smoking and increase cancer, it is unlikely we will make the changes necessary to slow down let alone reverse the damage we've done.

The reality is, at least 1/3rd of the worlds population that can't afford to relocate will suffer dire consequences of it's impact in the next 50 years or so. I really believe Earth will eventually select out a good chunk of our population to cause a rebalancing. No matter how badly we mess this planet up, the worst case scenario is we cause our own extinction and Earth will fully renew itself a hundreds if not thousands of years later. We are but a blip in the history of planet Earth.

 

[KEW]

Yep agreed 100% There is no doubt we are the major contributor to the increased CO2 since the industrial revolution. I doubt we will ever slow this down given human nature of greed and only acting when a crisis is reached. Since half our country is in denial of the science, and big oil spends billions confusing the science much like big tobacco did years ago when a link was reached between cigarette smoking and increase cancer, it is unlikely we will make the changes necessary to slow down let alone reverse the damage we've done.

The reality is, at least 1/3rd of the worlds population that can't afford to relocate will suffer dire consequences of it's impact in the next 50 years or so. I really believe Earth will eventually select out a good chunk of our population to cause a rebalancing. No matter how badly we mess this planet up, the worst case scenario is we cause our own extinction and Earth will fully renew itself a hundreds if not thousands of years later. We are but a blip in the history of planet Earth.

Maybe we should just embrace the inevitable and start referring to this future event as "The Cleansing" (that sounds rather appealing)!
But dammit, I have a kid who I dearly love and see much good in humanity, so let me hold onto my optimism no matter how the reality looks!

 

[mtrycrafts]

... and only acting when a crisis is reached. ....

Unfortunately global warming doesn't turn around on a dime and may be centuries or longer. We are at extremis now and may be too late.

 

[davidscott]

Yep agreed 100% There is no doubt we are the major contributor to the increased CO2 since the industrial revolution. I doubt we will ever slow this down given human nature of greed and only acting when a crisis is reached. Since half our country is in denial of the science, and big oil spends billions confusing the science much like big tobacco did years ago when a link was reached between cigarette smoking and increase cancer, it is unlikely we will make the changes necessary to slow down let alone reverse the damage we've done.

The reality is, at least 1/3rd of the worlds population that can't afford to relocate will suffer dire consequences of it's impact in the next 50 years or so. I really believe Earth will eventually select out a good chunk of our population to cause a rebalancing. No matter how badly we mess this planet up, the worst case scenario is we cause our own extinction and Earth will fully renew itself a hundreds if not thousands of years later. We are but a blip in the history of planet Earth.

Yep the Earth will most likely survive Homo Sapiens and move on. Just like all of the other dominant species. I wonder what a world post humans will look like. Probably still bacteria and insects I would imagine.

 

[KEW]

[QUOTE="herbu, post: 1322940, member: 56644"
2. Through history, which happens first: Increased temperature or Increased CO2 levels?[/QUOTE]

Found your answer!

From NASA:

Is there any merit to the studies that show that historical CO2 levels lag behind temperature, and not lead them?

Climate scientist Peter Hildebrand, Director of the Earth Science Division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, says yes, there's merit to those studies. In the pre-industrial age, the CO2 response to temperature was that the temperature would go up and CO2 would go up. Or if the temperature went down, CO2 would go down. And the reason for that is when the temperature went up, the whole biosphere revved up and emitted CO2, and we had more CO2 in the atmosphere. So we understand that process.

In the post-industrial age, the opposite is true. Increasing CO2 in the atmosphere is leading to increased temperature. So two different things happened, one pre-industrial, where temperature was driving the CO2, and post-industrial, where CO2 was driving temperature. Which means a completely different physical-biological process is going on. And we don't understand what the consequence of that change is.

It is a fundamental change to how the earth works and the earth's radiation balance works. And so, we're very concerned because we don't see any restraining force on continued increase in temperature due to continued increase in CO2. And that's a problem.

https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11362

So, past data (prior to the industrial age) indicates an increase in temperature would cause an increase in CO2!
After the industrial age (where man started significantly increasing the CO2 levels) the CO2 increase causes the temperature increase!

 

[KEW]

Yep the Earth will most likely survive Homo Sapiens and move on. Just like all of the other dominant species. I wonder what a world post humans will look like. Probably still bacteria and insects I would imagine.

Don't rule out a full-on "cleansing"!
While if we are only talking climate change, I'd expect there may even be some cold blooded animals survive, you can't rule out the possibility of a total nuclear war over what limited resources are remaining in the years before the temperature wipes us out.
"When all you have is nuclear bombs everywhere else starts to look like a target!"
To all of those other species, "Never underestimate us (or our stupidity)!"