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I believe the higher levels of CO2 are a concern and we should do what we can to reduce them. Yet, the points you make are not obvious to me. Do you have refere
by todd8 9y ago
I believe the higher levels of CO2 are a concern and we should do what we can to reduce them. Yet, the points you make are not obvious to me. Do you have reference to literature that I could read.
This article [1] in the journal Limnology and Oceanography (and others) indicates to me that we don't understand the effect of climate change on methane emissions from the Arctic and Antarctic seabed. Are emissions going up or down?
Wildfires in the western US are increasing, but we've changed the way we manage forests and forest fires in the west. The resulting accumulation of brush in forests (for one reason because we aggressively put out even small fires to protect encroaching development) makes big fires more likely. Furthermore on the scale of centuries, as long as the forests stand they will simply recycle CO2 by absorbing it as trees grow and by releasing it when they die (either through rotting and decay or by burning).
As far as the oceans not acting as CO2, the recent literature that I've read says that they are acting as CO2 sinks. The first two sentences of the abstract from a Feb. 2017 paper in Nature[2] are:
"The ocean is the largest sink for anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2), having absorbed roughly 40 per cent of CO2 emissions since the beginning of the industrial era. Recent data show that oceanic CO2 uptake rates have been growing over the past decade reversing a trend of stagnant or declining carbon uptake during the 1990s"
[1] Limnology and Oceanography. Effects of climate change on methane emissions from seafloor sediments in the Arctic Ocean: A review, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/lno.10307/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/lno.10307/full
[2] Nature. Recent increase in oceanic carbon uptake driven by weaker upper-ocean overturning. https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v542/n7640/abs/nature21068.html https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v542/n7640/abs/nature2...
- sand500 9y agoHow about a cycle of cutting down a lot of trees, burying the wood and then replanting to sequester carbon ?
- Sharlin 9y agoIt is not clear that old trees are less efficient at sequestering carbon than young ones. It used to be thought that old-growth forests are not good carbon sinks but this may not actually be the case.
- madaxe_again 9y agoAs you say, no such thing as feedback in nature. Nope. Not at all. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-40686984 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-40686984 http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/6/e1700584 http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/6/e1700584