6 ms·

Am I reading the visualization right that CO2 practically disappears every summer? Wouldn't it logically follow then that we're not actually too late to fix our

Am I reading the visualization right that CO2 practically disappears every summer? Wouldn't it logically follow then that we're not actually too late to fix our CO2 levels? If we can reduce emissions, plant consumption during the summer months for the northern hemisphere appears to be incredibly effective at basically demolishing the built-up CO2. Or is the "too late" aspect more about the melting polar caps, and that they'd not rebuild quickly?

lisper 10y ago
> Am I reading the visualization right that CO2 practically disappears every summer? No. The concentration does drop seasonally, but not even close to zero. See: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ Click on the "full record" tab and note that the Y axis starts at 320 (compared to the preindustrial level of 270). The seasonal drop is about 5PPM, and we're at about 400 now, roughly 50% over pre-industrial levels. There are seasonal natural emissions as well. Even if we cut artificial emissions to zero it would still take the better part of a century (maybe even several centuries) to get back down to preindustrial CO2 levels.
- willholloway 10y ago
  We can fix this, we can take the carbon out of the atmosphere [1]. There is reason for optimism. We. Are. Not. Doomed. The optimum level of carbon is probably slightly above pre-industrial levels. We definitely need to get back below 350ppm to keep human civilization... civilized. 400ppm+ is a trajectory to anarchy. The chimpanzee raiding impulse is alive and well in our DNA, a survival adaptation for stagnation and decline. We have the technology, bio-energy with carbon capture and sequestration, its a scaling problem, but first we have to stop pumping so much carbon up into the air. We have made progress there as well: 1) Cheap Solar PV has arrived, growth has been exponential for two decades. [2] 2) Energy storage is possible. Think underground maglev trains, on circular tracks, working as massive flywheels. 3) Fusion is attainable in the time frame we need it in, if we increase research funding, but its not required. That said if we cracked fusion, we would have all the energy we would need to desalinate seawater and sequester carbon. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-energy_with_carbon_capture_and_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-energy_with_carbon_capture... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics
  - 50CNT 10y ago
    Why not just massive flywheels? What's the benefit of having a train go over tracks instead of having a large solid wheel?
    - mirimir 10y ago
      Maybe bearing scale-up issues?
  - josho 10y ago
    Yup that's all true. But when the next president of the largest economy either doesn't believe in climate change or wants to increase fracking then we clearly have a long way to go before change happens.
    - r00fus 10y ago
      Both party candidates believe in fracking. Not sure how we lower our CO levels while fracking is the new coal.
      - Pxtl 10y ago
        Coal releases far more carbon than natural gas.
  - opo 10y ago
    >...Energy storage is possible. Possible, but except for pumped hydro, it looks like still a lot of work needs to be done. >...3) Fusion is attainable in the time frame we need it in, if we increase research funding, but its not required. That said if we cracked fusion, we would have all the energy we would need to desalinate seawater and sequester carbon. I am not sure if fusion is attainable in the time frame needed or it would be economically viable in that timeframe. With fission we have working reactors right now and with a little more research effort we could soon have 4th generation reactors. With reactor designs like the integral fast reactor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor) there would be enough potential electrical generating capacity to last the world thousands of years. (Of course we should also keep investing in fusion research and energy storage.)
- sandworm101 10y ago
  Short answer: There are more trees and other green stuff in the northern hemisphere. As the planet tilts relative to the sun the north/south get more of the light and warmth that helps plants grow. So there is a seasonal up and down to CO2 levels. It's been around for millions of years. What is new is the increased average.
gizmo686 10y ago
Unfortunately, plants do not sequester much CO2 long term. Instead, the CO2 gets released back to the atmosphere as plants die off.
- eru 10y ago
  Unless you bury the plants. That's what happened to create coal and oil. The problem of too much CO2 in the atmosphere will solve itself in a few thousand years: the ocean currents will sequester lots of carbon in the depths of the sea. Of course, people alive today and their children and grand-children don't want to wait for so long.
  - danieltillett 10y ago
    I think the time frames for returning to pre-human levels is longer than a few thousand years [1, 2]. 1. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/03/how-long-will-global-warming-last/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/03/how-lo... 2. http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0812/full/climate.2008.122.html http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0812/full/climate.2008.12...
    - eru 10y ago
      Thanks. Sorry, I was going from memory here. In any case, it'll happen by itself, but it's longer than humans can afford to wait.
      - danieltillett 10y ago
        Yes that is certainly true.
JoeDaDude 10y ago
"I think we're going to be a planet covered in trees. I wonder what that would be like". https://youtu.be/YxJLyPSRusc?t=52m4s https://youtu.be/YxJLyPSRusc?t=52m4s
zaroth 10y ago
The NASA video is very pretty, but the scale is like a line chart where the y-axis doesn't start at zero -- it's picked to most vividly distinguish minute changes in CO2 concentrations. The linked WaPo article has a chart which is much less pretty, but much more informative and significantly more troubling. [1] What you see from the zoomed-out historical chart is the variations throughout the year which produced such a beautiful visualization are little more than cute rounding errors in the steady yearly increases in atmospheric CO2 which have brought us from ~320 ppm in 1960 to 400ppm today. "Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations will continue to rise even though global greenhouse gas emissions from industry may be leveling off somewhat, the study adds — because each year still represents a net addition to the atmosphere, and carbon dioxide is a very long-lived greenhouse gas. Thus, even by 2050, the researchers don’t think we’ll find any way of getting back below 400 ppm." [1] https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp-content/uploads/sites/43/2016/06/co2_data_mlo.png https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp-co...
- nardi 10y ago
  More importantly, the NASA video is only for a single year (2006). The chart from WaPo that you linked clearly shows the problem with looking at only a single year of data.

lisper 10y ago

> Am I reading the visualization right that CO2 practically disappears every summer? No. The concentration does drop seasonally, but not even close to zero. See: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ Click on the "full record" tab and note that the Y axis starts at 320 (compared to the preindustrial level of 270). The seasonal drop is about 5PPM, and we're at about 400 now, roughly 50% over pre-industrial levels. There are seasonal natural emissions as well. Even if we cut artificial emissions to zero it would still take the better part of a century (maybe even several centuries) to get back down to preindustrial CO2 levels.

willholloway 10y ago
We can fix this, we can take the carbon out of the atmosphere [1]. There is reason for optimism. We. Are. Not. Doomed. The optimum level of carbon is probably slightly above pre-industrial levels. We definitely need to get back below 350ppm to keep human civilization... civilized. 400ppm+ is a trajectory to anarchy. The chimpanzee raiding impulse is alive and well in our DNA, a survival adaptation for stagnation and decline. We have the technology, bio-energy with carbon capture and sequestration, its a scaling problem, but first we have to stop pumping so much carbon up into the air. We have made progress there as well: 1) Cheap Solar PV has arrived, growth has been exponential for two decades. [2] 2) Energy storage is possible. Think underground maglev trains, on circular tracks, working as massive flywheels. 3) Fusion is attainable in the time frame we need it in, if we increase research funding, but its not required. That said if we cracked fusion, we would have all the energy we would need to desalinate seawater and sequester carbon. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-energy_with_carbon_capture_and_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-energy_with_carbon_capture... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics
- 50CNT 10y ago
  Why not just massive flywheels? What's the benefit of having a train go over tracks instead of having a large solid wheel?
  - mirimir 10y ago
    Maybe bearing scale-up issues?
- josho 10y ago
  Yup that's all true. But when the next president of the largest economy either doesn't believe in climate change or wants to increase fracking then we clearly have a long way to go before change happens.
  - r00fus 10y ago
    Both party candidates believe in fracking. Not sure how we lower our CO levels while fracking is the new coal.
    - Pxtl 10y ago
      Coal releases far more carbon than natural gas.
- opo 10y ago
  >...Energy storage is possible. Possible, but except for pumped hydro, it looks like still a lot of work needs to be done. >...3) Fusion is attainable in the time frame we need it in, if we increase research funding, but its not required. That said if we cracked fusion, we would have all the energy we would need to desalinate seawater and sequester carbon. I am not sure if fusion is attainable in the time frame needed or it would be economically viable in that timeframe. With fission we have working reactors right now and with a little more research effort we could soon have 4th generation reactors. With reactor designs like the integral fast reactor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor) there would be enough potential electrical generating capacity to last the world thousands of years. (Of course we should also keep investing in fusion research and energy storage.)
sandworm101 10y ago
Short answer: There are more trees and other green stuff in the northern hemisphere. As the planet tilts relative to the sun the north/south get more of the light and warmth that helps plants grow. So there is a seasonal up and down to CO2 levels. It's been around for millions of years. What is new is the increased average.

gizmo686 10y ago

Unfortunately, plants do not sequester much CO2 long term. Instead, the CO2 gets released back to the atmosphere as plants die off.

eru 10y ago
Unless you bury the plants. That's what happened to create coal and oil. The problem of too much CO2 in the atmosphere will solve itself in a few thousand years: the ocean currents will sequester lots of carbon in the depths of the sea. Of course, people alive today and their children and grand-children don't want to wait for so long.
- danieltillett 10y ago
  I think the time frames for returning to pre-human levels is longer than a few thousand years [1, 2]. 1. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/03/how-long-will-global-warming-last/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/03/how-lo... 2. http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0812/full/climate.2008.122.html http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0812/full/climate.2008.12...
  - eru 10y ago
    Thanks. Sorry, I was going from memory here. In any case, it'll happen by itself, but it's longer than humans can afford to wait.
    - danieltillett 10y ago
      Yes that is certainly true.

JoeDaDude 10y ago

"I think we're going to be a planet covered in trees. I wonder what that would be like". https://youtu.be/YxJLyPSRusc?t=52m4s https://youtu.be/YxJLyPSRusc?t=52m4s

zaroth 10y ago

The NASA video is very pretty, but the scale is like a line chart where the y-axis doesn't start at zero -- it's picked to most vividly distinguish minute changes in CO2 concentrations. The linked WaPo article has a chart which is much less pretty, but much more informative and significantly more troubling. [1] What you see from the zoomed-out historical chart is the variations throughout the year which produced such a beautiful visualization are little more than cute rounding errors in the steady yearly increases in atmospheric CO2 which have brought us from ~320 ppm in 1960 to 400ppm today. "Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations will continue to rise even though global greenhouse gas emissions from industry may be leveling off somewhat, the study adds — because each year still represents a net addition to the atmosphere, and carbon dioxide is a very long-lived greenhouse gas. Thus, even by 2050, the researchers don’t think we’ll find any way of getting back below 400 ppm." [1] https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp-content/uploads/sites/43/2016/06/co2_data_mlo.png https://img.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp-co...

nardi 10y ago
More importantly, the NASA video is only for a single year (2006). The chart from WaPo that you linked clearly shows the problem with looking at only a single year of data.