If humans stopped emitting so much excess Co2 today, would earths Co2 to O2 ratio return to normal?

Answer 1

not necessarily the humans. their support systems.

Answer 2

If by "normal" CO2 concentrations, you mean returning to the pre-industrial level of 270ppm from 385ppm now, we would not only need to stop emitting "so much excess", but would need to basically stop emitting CO2 entirely. The rate at which the land and ocean are able to naturally store carbon is less than 0.2 Pg Carbon/year. For comparison, in the period between 1990 and 1999, human-caused emissions were 6.4 Pg Carbon/year.

Even if we could eliminate all of our CO2 emissions, it would still take several centuries for the CO2 levels to fall to 270ppm, because some of the CO2 that has been absorbed by the oceans (about half of the total CO2 we've released until now) will be released back into the atmosphere to maintain an equilibrium between the air and the surface water.

So getting back to 270ppm is probably not realistic. But that doesn't mean we should just give up! We should focus our efforts on reducing the increase as much as we can. The 2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report concluded that even under an optimistic scenario for technology, conservation, and population, CO2 concentration will level out around 540ppm near the end of this century. This sounds bad, and it is, but it's a lot better than the other scenarios, where in 2100 CO2 levels are above 700ppm and continuing to increase.

Answer 3

Yes, but very slowly. Here's a graph which shows what plants can do (the tiny teeth that change with the seasons) and what man is doing (the big surge upwards). It will take the teeth a long time to nibble back the surge.

http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_gallery/mauna_loa_record/mlo_record.html

Look at the scenarios in this report for some possible CO2 curves:

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

Answer 4

There are natural sinks for carbon that would eventually reduce atmospheric CO2. The largest such natural sink is the ocean. But these are slow processes, and it would take several hundred years for the atmosphere to reach pre-industrial CO2 levels.

Answer 5

Yes but it would take about 100 years just for the CO2 levels to reach ones int he 1970s.

Answer 6

not necessarily humans directly but their creations that emmits to much CO2.. and the ratio CO2 from O2?? it is possible unless people will learn to plant trees that converts CO2 gases to O2 gases.

Answer 7

we are a society which has let our luxuries become necesities. cars, computers, cell phones, airconditioning,.....do we produce more crapp than the environment can acoomidate? if we stopped giving of co2, that means we are dead.
trends say that the earth goes through natural cycles of warming and cooling.who is to say. we are the first in recorded history to measure such things.

Answer 8

Define normal its normal now the earth has cycles and is just now changing. Ask your source of global warming to ex-plane the medieval warming period (hint )he cant that is why they do not talk about.

Answer 9

I really doubt it. But we should work towards reducing the effect in the future.

Answer 10

I guess you want to kill all the plants that use that CO2 for food.

Answer 11

Global warming is not our fault. This is part of the world's natural cycle. Humans are just getting so full of ourselves that we think we could cause something that big.