In terms of climate change does it make any difference if CO2 is released

[David E]

now or in the future? Since this whole greenhouse gas thing is global and pretty much permanent, does it make any difference if a barrel of oil is burned in the US in 2009 or in China in 2020?

 

[bravozulu]

It is not permanent Homer (Simpson). The total amount of CO2 released by humans is about 0.25% of what is in the ocean. The atmosphere and ocean are in equilibrium. That amount is all the CO2 that humans have released since the industrial revolution began. Sorry to break your balloon alarmists. I know you can just ignore reality that makes your mythology so obviously silly.

I see that alarmist ignore obvious facts I state. They are just propaganda pushing leftists. Everything I stated is a fact. Sorry buddy. You probably don't deserve to be compared to Homer. You asked a pretty dumb question though.

 

[Pete V]

I'd say it makes no difference. All CO2 in our atmosphere originates from our planet so it's impossible for humans to create more of it. It will be absorbed as plant food as it has been since life began.

EDIT: TY for quoting me linlyons, I'm honoured. The trendline for temperature in the chart that you linked to shows a sharp rise c. 1900 to 1940 whilst the CO2 rise remains slow & steady. The temp line then takes a short but sharp decline for around 15 years as the CO2 continues to rise at the same slow steady rate. Could you please explain that for me?

Also, the chart only counts the NUMBER of sunspots with no mention of intensity - that alone effectively invalidates it, but additionally, solar activity can fluctuate massively with or without sunspots. I forget exactly how much energy the sun puts out so you'll have to Google that, but as I recall, it's roughly equivalent to 100,000 Hiroshimas every second. Anyone who think mankind can make a noticeable difference to that kind of power is to put it politely, deluded.

 

[Monday]

Well, the thing is that carbon is naturally absorbed and released... by nature. If you burn a barrel in 2009, chances are that barrel will be absorbed by a plant or the ocean by 2020.
However if you are talking about it adding to greenhouse gasses, then I guess it both would have the same effect. However by 2020 we'll probably have less of an ozone layer and a bigger greenhouse gas layer, so that might affect it a bit more :/

 

[d/dx+d/dy+d/dz]

Interesting question. I think that the physical processes will be insensitive to the rate of CO2 buildup, but the biological feedbacks may be sensitive and unpredictable. A slower rate of CO2 release might enable biological sequestration to take a larger fraction of the CO2 emitted out of circulation and lower the ultimate atmospheric concentration. Does anyone here have a reference to peer reviewed literature about the functional relationship between the rate of biological sequestration and the atmospheric concentration of CO2?

 

[Dawei]

The final temperature will probably be the same, but a faster rate of emissions will lead to a faster rate of warming--and faster rate of climate change.

And I'm not sure why bravozulu thinks that people are denying that CO2 gets absorbed into the ocean. I've never seen anyone deny that, but whatever.

 

[Stuart H]

Glad you asked I'd like to vent. Whatever climate change we may or may not be going through I believe to be a normal change in global climate that we can very little to change. Before we started driving everywhere in cars we were in the industrial revolution of the 1800's, we then burned tons and tons of coal to power the steam engines that ran industry, heated homes, and smelting furnaces. London burned so much of it that it often had more smog than Los Angles ever thought of. Nearly every home in the world used coal or wood burned in several stoves, fireplaces, and heaters even during the summer since that was the only way to cook. When automobiles came on the scene that burned gasoline with no restrictions until clean air laws began to be passed in the late '60's I believe. The catalytic converters installed in the 70's turned the bad carbon monoxide into what? Yes carbon dioxide! In the 90's we took the R12 out of the car air conditioner because it was damaging the ozone layer and were told at the time it would take 70 years for the existing R12 to disapate from the atmosphere but we took the replacement that we really don't know the long term effects of either and put it on the store shelf like candy just like the R12 was. So now you are telling me that the CO2 we thought was safer to come out of the tailpipe in the 70's is now a bad thing. So if all this is correct why wasn't the temperature already going through the roof when the trains, factories, and homes were burning so much coal and putting so mch CO2 into the

 

[icarus62]

Yes - the sooner it's in the atmosphere, the less time we have to mitigate it.