This just doesn't look good

[n2doc]

[NutmegYankee]

1. No, it sure doesn't. nt

[antiquie]

2. from AIRS:

The troposphere is the lowest seven to ten mile high layer of atmosphere that begins at Earth's surface, and the AIRS instrument detects carbon dioxide best in middle of it at altitudes between 15,000 and 30,000 feet. In 2002, AIRS--which collects data around the entire globe every day--reported the average concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's mid-troposphere to be 372 parts per million (ppm). Still going strong in 2013, AIRS reported April's average daily global concentration in this region to be 397 ppm, with peaks exceeding 400 ppm. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the mid-troposphere lags behind the concentration found at the surface due to the time it takes the gas to be transported to this height. But when compared against the historic record which began in 1958 at Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory, the measurements made using AIRS data tell the same tale: atmospheric carbon dioxide is consistently increasing by about 2 parts per million, year after year, over the entire Earth.

http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/news_archive/2013-co2-400ppm/

[Tuesday Afternoon]

3. is there one from 10-20-30-50 years ago ... for comparison sake?

[n2doc]

4. The average looks like

[Tuesday Afternoon]

5. if we continue at that rate ... in the next 10-12 years what do you think we can expect?

[pscot]

13. Every year we dump more carbon dioxide

than we did the year before. If temperatures rise 5 degrees you will see hell on earth. And the temperature is going to rise 5 degrees and more.

[darkangel218]

6. The way we are moving forward with poisoning of our own planet is sickening.

You know what? We deserve what comes our way. We fucking did this.
Too bad for all the other innocent beigns who will perish along with us.

[LongTomH]

7. It's actually worse than you think -- CO2 stays in the atmosphere for a looonnnnng time!

Dr. K. Eric Drexler has written on this many times. Here's an excerpt from his blog post: Greenhouse Gases and Advanced Nanotechnology.

Carbon stays in the atmosphere for a long time.

To many readers, this is nothing new, yet most who know this make a simple mistake [see below]. They think of carbon as if it were sulfur, with pollution levels that rise and fall with the rate of emission: Cap sulfur emissions, and pollution levels stabilize; cut emissions in half, cut the problem in half. But carbon is different. It stays aloft for about a century, practically forever. It accumulates. Cap the rate of emissions, and the levels keep rising; cut emissions in half, and levels will still keep rising. Even deep cuts won’t reduce the problem, but only the rate of growth of the problem.

In the bland words of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “only in the case of essentially complete elimination of emissions can the atmospheric concentration of CO2 ultimately be stabilised at a constant [far higher!] level.” This heroic feat would require new technologies and the replacement of today’s installed infrastructure for power generation, transportation, and manufacturing. This seems impossible. In the real world, Asia is industrializing, most new power plants burn coal, and emissions are accelerating, increasing the rate of increase of the problem.

The preceeding paragraphs were from an article Dr. Drexler wrote for Edge magazine. He goes on:

In fact, the mistaken idea that CO2 behaves like a typical pollutant seems deeply entrenched in people’s thinking (if you find it in your thinking, please make an effort to dig it out).

Read the rest of the post here: http://metamodern.com/2009/01/01/greenhouse-gases-and-advanced-nanotechnology/

[Gregorian]

8. CO2 is so yesterday. Methane is the next big thing.

And yes, like the post above says, carbon dioxide lingers about a century. So that car, train, bus, plane from 1930, along with the Gulf wars, and all of the rest are still just hanging in our air.

Recently I've come to the realization that it's all over. Rising oceans are in our future. And not too distant at that.

Really stupid. Really irresponsible.

[Lugal Zaggesi]

16. Don't worry about rising oceans !

Drought and floods affecting planet-wide Agriculture - and the Wars that are started by billions of desperate humans - will kill you way before the rising oceans are a big problem.

[mindwalker_i]

9. I really wonder why the CO2 is concentrating around the north

Not sure if "pole" is the right word here, or "hemisphere" since it's spread out from the pole, but but covering the hemisphere by a long shot. Regardless, what's causing it to concentrate there? It seems, overall, to be north of the US which indicates that it's moving north rather than being created there. Of course, if warming is causing methane to be released from permafrost, perhaps there's a lot of CO2 there as well?

It would seem that one possible way to combat this would be to float a bunch of big-ass barges carrying plants, like with helium or hydrogen - before you go all Hindenburg on me, I was thinking of autonomous barges. It might be hard to float enough to make a difference though.

[n2doc]

11. Combination of source and circulation

Northern Hemisphere has a lot of emissions, and circulation tends to keep gasses in the same hemisphere. If sources were even, then the distributions would be even over time.

[mindwalker_i]

12. Ok, makes sense

I wonder what the air currents are like to circulate it there, and pull it more northward.

[Igel]

15. It's also seasonal.

If you look at the S. Hemisphere you'll see it's lower, but it's April--which is near the end of the growing season there.

The average concentration shows a large dip every spring, but that's because it's the average a 32.5 deg N latitude--which makes it what, Southern US and points E/W of there (around the globe)?

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. Very much because of seasons - from the page linked in #2:

In the zone nearest the equator, represented by the green line, the swing in the amount of carbon dioxide is minimal since plants in the tropics remain green all year long. The seasonal intake of carbon dioxide by plants as they grow and then released when they die is not pronounced here.

In the middle latitudes at 32.5, 62.5, and -27.5, we see greater swings in carbon dioxide due to the seasonal growth and die-off of plants in these regions.

Near the north pole, around 87.5 degrees latitude, we see the greatest amplitude in the seasonal cycle of carbon dioxide. But in this region the concentration of carbon dioxide is mostly driven by atmospheric circulation patterns which transport the gas from more southern latitudes into the Arctic as polar winds weaken in the spring. It is in this region where the concentration of carbon dioxide reaches its highest peak on Earth.

[djean111]

10. Sir Richard Branson has offered a $25 million prize for a way to capture CO2 already in the air.

He has about 6 or 10 finalists - there are a lot of people working on a solution that is not too expensive.
I would think that, as disaster closes in, cost would not be so much of a deterrent. The fed can print money in order to bail out our planet, I hope!

[pscot]

14. Branson is bargaining

but he doesn't want to give the Devil his due.

[Lugal Zaggesi]

17. We just need some way

to take CO2 out of the air,
and produce giant mountains of graphite:



Let's see, the CO2 in the atmosphere is rising by only 15 gigatonnes per year (40% of human emissions are taken up by carbon sinks), that's 15 billion 1000 kilograms, or 15 trillion kilograms.

The weight of carbon in carbon/oxygen/oxygen is 0.2727272727 of the total weight,
so 4.09 trillion kilograms.

Let's say 4.1 trillion kilograms of graphite mountains per year.
That ought to do it.

Graphite is roughly 2.2 grams/cm^3.
That's nothing.
Just 1.86 cubic kilometers of graphite.
Per year.

It would take decades to make a graphite Mt. Everest in Oklahoma - by Senator Inhofe's house:



Mount Everest is 8.85 kilometers high, so a new graphite one would hold plenty of carbon.
And Oklahoma would welcome the dramatic scenery.

[kristopher]

18. +1 Thanks

[Chemisse]

19. ++