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CO2 levels have steadily declined from 3,000 ppm over the last 150 million years. How do you explain such enormous, steady decline if plants do "[not] even trap
by mkempe 9y ago
CO2 levels have steadily declined from 3,000 ppm over the last 150 million years. How do you explain such enormous, steady decline if plants do "[not] even trap carbon"?
Further, how do you explain the Carboniferous CO2-fixation that started with CO2 at 4,500 ppm and ended down below 210 ppm?
Contrary to your claims that only bogs or permafrost could keep plant-fixed carbon in the long run, phytoplankton absorb carbon in vast quantities, and when they sink their accumulation in sea floors for millions of years is the primary origin story of oil and coal.
Scientists say that plant life has exerted and continues to exert "massive power" over geological eras. Are they in error?
- eloff 9y agoPlant life typically decomposes and so it's carbon neural. I can't speak to the plankton, but I definitely want to look that up now, because 70% of the surface is water. That could be a big effect. I do want to point out that the carboniferous was unique though - microorganisms had not yet evolved to be able to digest the cellulose of trees. So there was millions and millions of years of trees growing, dying, and sequestering carbon. That doesn't happen anymore.
- mkempe 9y agoOn the one hand I commend you for wanting to learn about the role of phytoplankton in carbon fixation -- if you don't know about it, what else might you not know? On the other hand I am disheartened that you confuse lignin with cellulose. It is lignin that evolved at the outset of the Carboniferous, and which fungi and co did not yet have the ability to break down.