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> Even if a miracle happened and we reached global zero emissions today there are already 415ppm in the atmosphere which will remain there for thousands of year

• pier25 7y ago
  https://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-official-atmospheric-co2-just-exceeded-415-ppm-for-first-time-in-human-history https://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-official-atmospheric-co2-j... > The lifetime in the air of CO2, the most significant man-made greenhouse gas, is probably the most difficult to determine, because there are several processes that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Between 65% and 80% of CO2 released into the air dissolves into the ocean over a period of 20–200 years. The rest is removed by slower processes that take up to several hundreds of thousands of years, including chemical weathering and rock formation. This means that once in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide can continue to affect climate for thousands of years. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jan/16/greenhouse-gases-remain-air https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jan/16/greenhou...
  • loons2 7y ago
    Thanks. A staff writer for the Guardian. Think I'll look a bit further for a more authoritative (read logical) number.
    • pier25 7y ago
      I was being gentle. Is the IPCC good enough for you? > There is sufficient uptake capacity in the ocean to incorporate 70 to 80% of foreseeable anthropogenic CO2 emissions to the atmosphere, this process takes centuries due to the rate of ocean mixing. As a result, even several centuries after emissions occurred, about a quarter of the increase in concentration caused by these emissions is still present in the atmosphere. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/TAR-03.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/TAR-03.pdf