I haven't checked it myself via computer models, or by even a boe calculation, so I can't say for sure that it wouldn't be a problem at 1000 ppm or even 500 ppm. <You mean CO2 will be a problem if it is .05% or even .1%? Oxygen is at 21%, so I think C)2 will have to be a lot higher than 1000 PPM or .1% to be a problem. Not nearly as high as water vapor at 1 to 2% of the atmosphere. >
While I like to use a bit of hyperbole and say CO2 is at homeopathic levels, it isn't really. Plants thrive on even 290 parts per million and the current 390 parts per million is like a feast for them [which is a slight exaggeration because 1000 or 2000 parts per million would be feast levels - 390 parts per million is just a staple diet up from the starvation levels of 280 parts per million before people helped nature along by recycling some of the grave-bound carbon in coal, limestone [to cement], oil, gas, peat and tars.
While you are right that CO2 is minuscule compared with water, that's not to say that it doesn't have potent powers like enzymes, vitamins or catalysts, in microscopic quantities.
The calculation of inbound light and radiating light and the amount absorbed for different CO2 concentrations should be simple enough. Presumably the physicists involved have crunched some numbers and therefore come up with the fears about the Greenhouse Effect.
Their calculations of the amount of heat absorbed as a result of CO2 light absorption was obviously enough to send hordes of people into a tizzy thinking we are all going to fry as the cooking process continued as more CO2 was produced, and accelerated as more CO2 and CH4 is released due to the warming process [CO2 being less soluble in warmer than colder water for example, not to mention carbon buried under ice being exposed and rotting as well as methane hydrates bubbling up].
In actual science rather than "The Science" as expounded by those weekend "marriage" exponents Jones, Suzuki, Briffa, Mann et Al, the theory is interesting but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. After 100 years of dreaded Greenhouse Effect, Gaia's temperature rose less than 1 degree Celsius, which might or might not have been due to human CO2. Even if it was all due to to human CO2, that bit of warming and loads more CO2 are good things, not bad things because warmth is nice for humans, cold is bad, and plants love high concentrations of CO2 [like humans enjoy a banquet].
Since climate variability is more like 10 degrees than less than 1 degree and weather races up and down by 60 degrees in major cities like Ottawa [from -30 deg C to + 30 deg C], a fraction of 1 degree is not really an issue.
Yes, at the tipping point, a straw is enough to break a camel's back, but the areas subject to that tiny pressure are small in proportion to the whole planet. With the extra CO2, the added heat is compensated for by less water requirement for leaves to function, so it's not clear that there isn't a net gain for plants at the tipping point.
So far, I can't see a problem with CO2. I can see advantages and the advantages are substantial [even apart from the function of providing motive power, heating, or electricity]. It seems most likely [given the billion year history of Gaia's climated] that the water and other cycles act in a homeostatic way - when it's warmer, cloud cover reduces, more water is pumped to the poles and stored as ice, deserts increase, when it's cooler, plants grow closer to the equator and increase light absorption, glaciers and snow cover spread [reducing light absorption]. It's complicated but basically involves plant cover increasing and decreasing, snow cover increasing and decreasing, cloud cover increasing and decreasing, water cover increasing and decreasing - with solar variability mixing things up.
A simple CO2 concentration versus light absorption graph is not enough to describe the atmosphere, as the computer modelers have found.
So, while Kant, Bong-man and the Mann Made Warming self-dealing gang of kleptocratic cap and traders are wrong in their ideas, we should not just presume the ad hominem idea that because they are bung, therefore CO2 Global Warming is totally bung as a theory. We should keep a weather eye on the issue - there is a LOT of CO2 being produced. It looks like a good thing to me, but I have not proved it is not a bad thing. Nature seems to be proving that more CO2 is a good thing, not a bad thing, which is the best proof. But nature might flip at some point - one of the vaunted "tipping points".
Mqurice |
