3 ms·
On a medium-long timescale, it has to be basically even, right? If the amount of carbon captured in the soil were secularly increasing at 10% per century, then
by aetherson 12y ago
On a medium-long timescale, it has to be basically even, right? If the amount of carbon captured in the soil were secularly increasing at 10% per century, then we wouldn't have any carbon anywhere besides the soil -- even if it was all released at the last ice age.
If the amount of carbon in the soil is secularly increasing at 0.01% per century, well, that's maybe interesting geologically, but for the purposes of handling climate change in the next century or two, we can treat that as equivalent to "it's steady state."
- lerouxb 12y agoIt can't really be even, though. Otherwise how did all the fossil fuels form? Over geological time periods the co2 and o2 levels vary greatly. Maybe if not for mankind the atmosphere would actually have eventually ended up co2-poor over time ;) But I guess that timeframe isn't very relevant to any climate change we'll be experiencing in the near future.