Hi All
There are not many large coal-fired power stations in the Arctic and so
the question arises about where this extra CO2 in the Arctic has come
from. One possibility is that it is the product of methane
decomposition and would be in line with the report to this group from
Greg Rau of 22 May.
We know that the atmosphere weighs about 5 E18 kilograms. If we know
the plan area represented by the observing stations and the decay rate
of methane to CO2 we could get an approximate figure for the mass of
methane causing the rise in CO2. We could then compare this with the
scary rate of methane increase reported by Semiletov and Shakhova.
Stephen
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design
Institute for Energy Systems
School of Engineering
Mayfield Road
University of Edinburgh EH9 3JL
Scotland
Tel +44 131 650 5704
Mobile 07795 203 195
www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs
On 02/06/2012 17:41, Rau, Greg wrote:
Greenhouse gas levels pass symbolic 400ppm CO2 milestone
Monitoring stations in the Arctic detect record levels of carbon dioxide,
higher than ever above 'safe' 350ppm mark
Associated Press
guardian.co.uk, Friday 1 June 2012 07.50 EDT
The Arctic Ocean with leads and cracks in the ice cover of north of Alaska.
Photograph: Courtesy Eric Kort/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/NASA
The world's air has reached what scientists call a troubling new milestone for
carbon dioxide, the main global warming pollutant.
Monitoring stations across the Arctic this spring are measuring more than 400
parts per million of the heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere. The number isn't
quite a surprise, because it's been rising at an accelerating pace.
Years ago, it passed the 350ppm mark that many scientists say is the highest
safe level for carbon dioxide. It now stands globally at 395.
So far, only the Arctic has reached that 400 level, but the rest of the world
will follow soon.
"The fact that it's 400 is significant," said Jim Butler, the global monitoring director
at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Lab. "It's just
a reminder to everybody that we haven't fixed this, and we're still in trouble."
"The news today, that some stations have measured concentrations above 400ppm in the
atmosphere, is further evidence that the world's political leaders – with a few honourable
exceptions – are failing catastrophically to address the climate crisis," former vice
president Al Gore, the highest-profile campaigner against global warming, said in an email.
"History will not understand or forgive them."
Carbon dioxide is the chief greenhouse gas and stays in the atmosphere for 100
years. Some carbon dioxide is natural, mainly from decomposing dead plants and
animals. Before the industrial age, levels were around 275 parts per million.
For more than 60 years, readings have been in the 300s, except in urban areas,
where levels are skewed. The burning of fossil fuels, such as coal for
electricity and oil for gasoline, has caused the overwhelming bulk of the
man-made increase in carbon in the air, scientists say.
It's been at least 800,000 years – probably more – since Earth saw carbon
dioxide levels in the 400s, Butler and other climate scientists said.
Readings are coming in at 400 and higher all over the Arctic. They've been
recorded in Alaska, Greenland, Norway, Iceland and even Mongolia. But levels
change with the seasons and will drop a bit in the summer, when plants suck up
carbon dioxide, NOAA scientists said.
So the yearly average for those northern stations likely will be lower and so
will the global number.
"It's an important threshold," said the Carnegie Institution ecologist Chris Field, a
scientist who helps lead the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
"It is an indication that we're in a different world."
Ronald Prinn, an atmospheric sciences professor at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, said 400 is more a psychological milestone than a scientific one. We think in
hundreds, and "we're poking our heads above 400," he said.
Tans said the readings show how much the Earth's atmosphere and its climate are
being affected by humans. Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels hit
a record high of 34.8 billion tonnes in 2011, up 3.2%, the International Energy
Agency announced last week.
The agency said it's becoming unlikely that the world can achieve the European
goal of limiting global warming to just 2 degrees based on increasing pollution
and greenhouse gas levels.
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