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I don't think the right interpretation of the CO2 measurement data is obvious or clear tbh. Naively, one would read that graph to mean there has been a constant

by nvm0n2 3y ago

I don't think the right interpretation of the CO2 measurement data is obvious or clear tbh. Naively, one would read that graph to mean there has been a constant level of emissions since records began. Concentration in the atmosphere just goes up by the same amount year in, year out. Yet accounting of per-country emissions doesn't show that, it shows huge increases in the rate of emissions over time: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-region https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-re... Which implies, what? I dunno. These two graphs do not reconcile. You could argue several different causes for that.

palata 3y ago
> Naively, one would read that graph to mean there has been a constant level of emissions since records began. Concentration in the atmosphere just goes up by the same amount year in, year out. > Which implies, what? I dunno. These two graphs do not reconcile. Did you actually look at the numbers? The CO2 levels in your first link are not growing linearly. Of course you can quickly look at the graph, and "naively" say that to you, it looks like a line. That doesn't change the fact that it is not a line, and when it is about your survival in the next few decades, you may want to do something more than throwing "naive" interpretations like this out there. For instance: https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/8/5/61 https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/8/5/61
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  If the trend is so tiny it's invisible to the naked eye, that's another way of saying that human activity is having no perceptible impact on CO2 levels, which isn't meant to be the case is it. BTW your paper is a bit of an odd citation, could you explain further? It itself states that its own conclusions are "unintuitive" and that they need a complex model in which there are vast non-linear sinks absorbing human emissions, as otherwise they face problems explaining the data. Also, that "measured atmospheric CO2 concentration values continue a steady decline as one moves backward in time from about 1925 to 1750". So CO2 concentrations were steadily rising during this time that climatologists usually call "pre industrial", where was it coming from?
  - palata 3y ago
    > If the trend is so tiny it's invisible to the naked eye You cannot say "we emit more CO2 every year, though the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increases linearly, that's weird", and then when someone tells you it's not increasing linearly, say "oh but when I quickly look at that one graph there, to me it looks like a line, so that proves that it is a line".

by nvm0n2 3y ago

palata 3y ago

> Naively, one would read that graph to mean there has been a constant level of emissions since records began. Concentration in the atmosphere just goes up by the same amount year in, year out. > Which implies, what? I dunno. These two graphs do not reconcile. Did you actually look at the numbers? The CO2 levels in your first link are not growing linearly. Of course you can quickly look at the graph, and "naively" say that to you, it looks like a line. That doesn't change the fact that it is not a line, and when it is about your survival in the next few decades, you may want to do something more than throwing "naive" interpretations like this out there. For instance: https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/8/5/61 https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/8/5/61

nvm0n2 3y ago
If the trend is so tiny it's invisible to the naked eye, that's another way of saying that human activity is having no perceptible impact on CO2 levels, which isn't meant to be the case is it. BTW your paper is a bit of an odd citation, could you explain further? It itself states that its own conclusions are "unintuitive" and that they need a complex model in which there are vast non-linear sinks absorbing human emissions, as otherwise they face problems explaining the data. Also, that "measured atmospheric CO2 concentration values continue a steady decline as one moves backward in time from about 1925 to 1750". So CO2 concentrations were steadily rising during this time that climatologists usually call "pre industrial", where was it coming from?
- palata 3y ago
  > If the trend is so tiny it's invisible to the naked eye You cannot say "we emit more CO2 every year, though the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increases linearly, that's weird", and then when someone tells you it's not increasing linearly, say "oh but when I quickly look at that one graph there, to me it looks like a line, so that proves that it is a line".