Nobel Winner: CO2 going to 1,000 Parts Per Million

[n2doc]

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/nobel-winner-co2-going-to-1000-parts-per-million/?em&ex=1212292800&en=1f9a89de865c595d&ei=5087%0A

Nobel Winner: CO2 going to 1,000 Parts Per Million
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
I spent a few minutes Wednesday with F. Sherwood Rowland, the atmospheric chemist from the University of California, Irvine, who shared a Nobel Prize for his work revealing the threat to the ozone layer from CFC’s and similar synthetic chemicals. He has a very sobering forecast for levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

He’s in New York for the World Science Festival, along with a large flock of Nobel laureates and other luminaries. We discussed the body of science pointing to troubles ahead from rising carbon dioxide levels during a break after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s speech on the “tragic lag between what we know and what we do.”

The response to the threat from CFC’s — a treaty and phaseout that is working — has been held up as a model for what humanity can do with carbon dioxide, the main emission linked to warming and the biggest threat, because of its long lifetime in the air, to drive temperatures dangerously higher. But Dr. Rowland, along with others at the meeting, including Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate and director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said there are big differences.

snip:

During a break, I asked Dr. Rowland two quick questions. The first: Given the nature of the climate and energy challenges, what is his best guess for the peak concentration of carbon dioxide?

(Keep in mind that various experts and groups have said risks of centuries of ecological and economic disruption rise with every step toward and beyond 450 parts per million, with some scientists, most notably James Hansen of NASA, saying the long-term goal should be returning the atmospheric concentration to 350 parts per million, a level passed in 1988.)

His answer? “1,000 parts per million,” he said.

My second question was, what will that look like?

“I have no idea,” Dr. Rowland said. He was not smiling.

[Dead_Parrot]

1. ...

[LARED]

2. Well, it will probably be much greener

as plants love CO2. We might be all dead, but it will be green.

[hunter]

14. Like a big eutrophic lake.

Green scum on top, anaerobic muck on the bottom.

It'll smell bad too. Everywhere.

[Wapsie B]

3. Oh hell, judgement day is coming soon so why worry?

:sarcasm:


Sorry, I was channeling James Watt for a second there.

[Delphinus]

4. Am I understanding this correctly:

We've already surpassed the 350 parts per million - but this guy is saying we can go up to 1,000 parts per million?

I went and read the entire story, but I think I'm missing something. Help?

[Dead_Parrot]

5. The sky's the limit, baby!!

YeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeHaaaaaawww!

(Yes, we are fucked. Yes, 1000ppm is easy, and yes, you will die)

Any questions?

[SlicerDicer-]

15. Solid proof we will die?

I have a indoor garden that I have calculated how long I must stay in it each day breathing to do carbon dioxide enrichment to 1200ppm and there is no harmful effects IIRC its 5000ppm before people start to get poisoned.

[Dead_Parrot]

16. You wouldn't suffocate, you'd starve

The temperature changes from 1000ppm (along with the chemical changes to the ocean) would wipe out most of the biosphere. That you can sit around breathing isn't really going to help, long term.

[SlicerDicer-]

17. I have yet to see anything concrete

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v425/n6956/full/425365a.html

Note this here. It states that it would require 1900ppm!!! thats way higher to achieve models of ocean acidification.. Thats year 2300 btw.. This assumes that Peak Oil is false though.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v392/n6674/full/392335a0.html

Just interesting paleoclimate :)

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v391/n6663/abs/391141a0.html
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBC-40378TB-G&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=056da14daa358b71a58c1eac625f87ac
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v325/n6105/abs/325587a0.html

Crazy stuff that could happen today and really our climate can be very violent without "Anthropogenic" and it can go both ways :)

[Dead_Parrot]

19. How concrete would you like it?

Glad you find it interesting: Since it's already here, you'll get to be interested first hand.

"We actually saw the shells dissolving off these living organisms. They were dissolving off the terapods as they were swimming around,"

"Interesting paleoclimate"?
:banghead:

[SlicerDicer-]

20. If you are not familiar with the area up there perhaps?

That is not widespread and there is one area that is occurring of all. Few words for ya then go look at NOAA and compare the data for yourself with reality.

Earthquake, Discovered, Volcano, Vent, Etc.

Yes Volcano's cause acidification who woulda thunk? The interesting paleoclimate shows that CO2 changes and everything else without influences of man so there is obviously other forces at work. We should learn what these are before we yell the sky is falling.

[Dead_Parrot]

22. Must be a fucking big volcano, then.

Since Hawaii, Australia and the Caribbean, even the whole fucking planet seem to be affected.

Earthquake, Discovered, Volcano, Vent, Fail, Try Again.

[GliderGuider]

23. Anthropogenic CO2 release significantly exceeds volcanic activity

In a previous post I reported this disturbing fact:

We produce 130 times as much CO2 as all the volcanoes now active on Earth. Even if you go back to the Deccan or Siberian traps you may not find an equivalent. According to this page a flood basalt eruption of 2000 km^3 emits as much CO2 as we do from one year's worth of fossil fuels. The Deccan traps were up to 1000 times that big, but the various duration estimates I've seen point to the highest rate of vulcanism happening over at least 10,000 years, out of a total duration of perhaps a million years.

So we are emitting CO2 at least ten times faster than the Deccan traps, an eruption that is implicated in the K/T extinction.

There is no way we can hide behind volcanoes to escape our responsibility for atmospheric CO2.

[tinrobot]

12. Not we "can" go up, but we "will" go up to 1000ppm

He's saying that at current trends, that's where it peaks - over twice the level where most scientists say catastrophe happens.

It's not going to be pretty.

[jpak]

6. I saw Rowland on his mini-tour of Maine colleges and universities this winter

good things happening with CFC mixing ratios

bad things happening with CO2

[phantom power]

7. Hey, then we can start talking about parts per thousand!

Except we won't, because we'll be dead.

[GliderGuider]

8. 1000 ppm?

I note that he gave no time frame, but if he expects that concentration to occur as a result of human activity, it really doesn't matter if it's 50 or 100 or 200 years from now.

The comparison with CFCs is one of the reasons I'm pessimistic about the prospects for mitigation - compared to CFCs the production of CO2 is totally pervasive, distributed throughout virtually every human activity. It's not like we can focus on a single industrial sector like refrigeration.

Adding to that is the confirmation of something we doomers have saying for a while now: the scale of the problem and the time frame suck.

Avoiding a lot of warming and climate change while heading toward 9 billion people seeking a decent life will require an utter transformation of the multi-trillion-dollar energy system, Dr. Chu said. An audience member wondered whether spiking gas prices would propel the change. Dr. Chu said higher energy prices would not be enough on their own, adding that the necessary energy transformation will also require decades of sustained research, development, and deployment of new technologies.

While some people hope that Peak Oil will reduce CO2 emissions, the abundance of coal and our evident willingness to use it argues against that outcome. A rapid population decline would help, but the chances of that to starting within two decades (either voluntarily or involuntarily) seem remote.

Ick.

[nichomachus]

9. 1,000 ppm won't kill you

It won't even hurt you. In fact, the chances are you're in environments with 1,000 ppm a lot, depending on what you do. Most classrooms are probably that by the end of the day. So, are a lot of office buildings.

Now, when you get to 5,000 ppm, check back.

[GliderGuider]

10. Not directly, no

The degree of climate change and biosphere disruption implicit in that level might be pretty bad for a lot of us, though.

[bananas]

11. The problem is CO2 in the sky which acts as a greenhouse gas. nt

[izquierdista]

13. Actually there is an upper limit

Increasing the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere increases the amount of dissolved CO2 in the oceans. The ocean in turn contains a large reservoir of ions which can precipitate out as carbonate. I remember reading somewhere that at around 850 ppm, Magnesium will begin to precipitate out as MgCO3. I'll have to go and try to dig out that reference.

[SlicerDicer-]

18. Well if you believe that...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/27/AR2007122701942.html

WERE SCRAPNOIDS!!! as Coneheads would say :) So no need to worry we have dun busted the system and thrown too many wrenches to fix.

[ironrooster]

21. it seems probable

that these changes will make some areas alot more arid - or turn previous temperate areas into scrub-land. Probably alot of people will starve (billions) and there are going to be vast areas of depopulation which will result in far less energy demand.
A bottle-neck event. Oh sure, things will be pretty shitty for awhile - but some species have to learn the hard way.

I don't think everybody will die though (only about 3/4 of the world's pop).

Have a nice day! Think I'll rent "DUNE"