Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

Record surge in atmospheric CO2 seen in 2016

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41778089

Quote:Researchers say a combination of human activities and the El Niño weather phenomenon drove CO2 to a level not seen in 800,000 years.

Quote:Last year's increase was 50% higher than the average of the past 10 years.

Quote:This year's greenhouse gas bulletin produced by the WMO, is based on measurements taken in 51 countries. Research stations dotted around the globe measure concentrations of warming gases including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

Quote:The study notes that since 1990 there has been a 40% increase in total radiative forcing, that's the warming effect on our climate of all greenhouse gases.
"Geological-wise, it is like an injection of a huge amount of heat," said Dr Tarasova.
"The changes will not take ten thousand years like they used to take before, they will happen fast - we don't have the knowledge of the system in this state, that is a bit worrisome!"

More CO2 promotes plant growth, which in turn lowers temperatures. http://www.sciencealert.com/plants-help-...mperatures

"The rapid increase in methane since 2007, especially in 2014, 2015, and 2016, is different. This was not expected in the Paris agreement. Methane growth is strongest in the tropics and sub-tropics. The carbon isotopes in the methane show that growth is not being driven by fossil fuels. We do not understand why methane is rising. It may be a climate change feedback. It is very worrying." - http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41778089

I

Quote:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestat...orestation

Over a 50 year period, percentage of land cover by tropical rainforests has decreased by 50%. Where total land coverage by tropical rainforests decreased from 14% to 6%. A large contribution to this loss can be identified between 1960 to 1990, when 20% of all tropical rainforests were destroyed. At this rate, extinction of such forests is projected to occur by the mid 21st century.[7]

Quote:A 2005 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that although the Earth's total forest area continued to decrease at about 13 million hectares per year, the global rate of deforestation has recently been slowing.[118][119] The 2016 report by the FAO[120] reports from 2010 to 2015 there was a worldwide decrease in forest area of 3.3 million ha per year. During this five-year period, the biggest forest area loss occurred in the tropics, particularly in South America and Africa. Per capita forest area decline was also greatest in the tropics and subtropics but is occurring in every climatic domain (except in the temperate) as populations increase.

http://www.dw.com/en/amazon-deforestatio...a-36597538

• Date 01.12.2016
  
• Author Irene Banos Ruiz
  
• Related Subjects Amazon, Environment, Deforestation, Brazil
  

Quote:Amazon deforestation ticks tragically up
A sad record in 2016: the Amazon rainforest has suffered the largest reported forest loss since 2008. Environmentalists are very concerned about impacts on biodiversity and climate protection.

A step backward

Quote:Although forest areas have been decreasing globally since 1990, the good news is that forest loss per year is half as much as it was then. But the latest Amazon rainforest data has cast a shadow over illusions of global reforestation.

Quote:Tasso Azevedo, coordinator of Brazil's greenhouse gas watchdog, said that the present increase in annual deforestation represents 130 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions - about twice the yearly emissions of Portugal.

Quote:"Brazil is unfortunately one of the main greenhouse gas emitters worldwide - and this is due not to industry or transport, rather to deforestation," Maldonado said.

Quote:The quantity of meat consumed by a single average German citizen, for instance, contributes to the deforestation of around 300 square meters of cerrado plantation in Brazil - since tropical savanna is cleared to grow crops for animal feed.

http://blog.ucsusa.org/science-blogger/d...on-woke-up

Quote: Deforestation in the region declined 70% from 2005 (19,014 km2) to 2014 (5,012 km2)

Quote:Since 2012, the annual rate of deforestation has stayed at around 5,000 km2 (4,571 km2 in 2012, 5,891 km2 in 2013, 5,012 km2 in 2014 and 6,207 km2 in 2015), according to data from the PRODES 2016 database.

https://rainforests.mongabay.com/defores...onesia.htm

Quote:Change in Forest Cover: Between 1990 and 2000, Indonesia lost an average of 1,871,500 hectares of forest per year. The amounts to an average annual deforestation rate of 1.61%. Between 2000 and 2005, the rate of forest change increased by 19.1% to 1.91% per annum. In total, between 1990 and 2005, Indonesia lost 24.1% of its forest cover, or around 28,072,000 hectares. for the 1990-2005 interval, Indonesia lost 25.6% of its forest and woodland habitat.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_by_region

From NASA:

"A quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25.

An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States." - https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2436/co2-i...erfor-now/


Apparently some people think that quantity trumps quality of citations.

Here is the raw data that I think most people agree to be 'true':-
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/full.html
In my lifetime CO2 has increased by 25% (from 320ppm to 400ppm) , a child born now will very likely see CO2 levels 50% higher than when I was born (from 320ppm to 480ppm).

The scientific and political divide is between those who predict (by their chosen model) that a 50% increase in CO2 will have no effect, a beneficial effect or a rather bad effect where everybody is using their chosen definition of 'effect' as good, bad or indifferent.

Syne's (possibly simplistic) chosen model involves an increase in vegetation which will cool the planet by evaporating water from their leaves. There may be one or two problems with Syne's model.

Increasing vegetation means increasing CO2 absorption as well.

You also fail to mention those who predict some ill effects but not a long term catastrophe.

Syne Wrote:Increasing vegetation means increasing CO2 absorption as well.

As a wild guess I'll suggest every year we burn the carbon deposits (coal/gas/oil) that took (the guess->) 100,000 years to deposit. With the best will in the world there is no conceivable way we somehow stuff that carbon back into the Earth in a year. The difference between how fast we can extract and burn that carbon (1 year) and how long it will take for it to go back (100,000 years) is the CO2 that ends up in the atmosphere. In fairness we might be able to make 10 times more forests than were responsible for storing the coal that is burned - in that case the balance would be restored within (say) 10,000 years. That isn't a totally fair analysis but hopefully gives some idea of the scale of the problem.

Syne Wrote:You also fail to mention those who predict some ill effects but not a long term catastrophe.

I thought I covered that with:-

"no effect, a beneficial effect or a rather bad effect where everybody is using their chosen definition of 'effect' as good, bad or indifferent."

Yeah, "wild guess".

The CO2 fertilization effect shows that as CO2 increases so does the RATE of photosynthesis. IOW, no only are there more plants, each plant is also converting CO2 faster. This has been shown to account for many discrepancies in models.

It doesn't matter what model you choose - CO2 is being added faster than it is being removed. Anything that is going to stop that needs to start happening in (say) the next sixty years - there's no sign of it so far. The claim that something will stop the increase is based on faith without evidence. You would be better off with a model that claims to show there will be no effect of (say) a 50% in CO2.

(Oct 30, 2017 11:25 PM)confused2 Wrote: [ -> ]Here is the raw data that I think most people agree to be 'true':-
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/full.html
In my lifetime CO2 has increased by 25% (from 320ppm to 400ppm) , a child born now will very likely see CO2 levels 50% higher than when I was born (from 320ppm to 480ppm).

The scientific and political divide is between those who predict (by their chosen model) that a 50% increase in CO2 will have no effect, a beneficial effect or a rather bad effect where everybody is using their chosen definition of 'effect' as good, bad or indifferent.  

Syne's (possibly simplistic) chosen model involves an increase in vegetation which will cool the planet by evaporating water from their leaves. There may be one or two problems with Syne's model.

Because there is general misstrust in politicans in many well media published places the emphasis on non beleif is mixed up with religious ferver.

The USA promotes a clear war between the religion and science.
it leaves it up to individuals and non government organisations to try and solve the very problems that the government is supposed to be managing.