How can the total amount of CO2 that natural earth processes produce be calculated?

Question

I understand that humans are contributing more now than ever, but how can we blame ourselves for something we know so little about? What is the ratio of natural processes:human processes?

Answer 1

it is pretty simple to estimate the amount of a chemical, like CO2, produced by knowing what kind of reaction creates it, and the amount of reactants used in the process.
and the amount of CO2 produced by human activity is somewhere near 30 billion tons a year.
plants and trees would remediate pretty much most of the natural sources, if we weren't cutting them all down, since plants will remediate about 1.7X their own wieght in cellose, of CO2.
since there is excess CO2 from natural and man-made sources, with less plants to remediate it, that leaves more nutrients for photosynthetic bacteria, which ten to be a little less resitant to pH changes in their environment, created by higher CO2 concentrations.

we can blame ourselves, because there aren't any great sources of N2O that occur naturally, and compare to manmade sources. the greatest source of N2O is poor agricultural practices of using nitrogen based fertilizers. N2O is far worse than CO2 at trapping heat. CO2, is just easier to deal with, and cheaper, making it the best place to start.

another man-made greenhouse gas is surface O3 which is created in nature in very insignificant amounts in our lower atmosphere. this is different from the O3 in the upper atmosphere that makes up our ozone layer, which is not only responsible for blocking some of the sun's energy, but also transporting it back out if it wasn't being blocked by greenhouse gases inthe lower stratosphere.

is this responsible for the climate changes we are experiencing?? definitely maybe.
but one thing is for sure, all of this pollution being discussed as a cause for global warming is damaging to the environment and our health, and needs to be dealt with even if global climate change was not occuring.

Answer 2

Natural processes make much more CO2. But basic science proves that it's the CO2 from burning fossil fuels that increases atmospheric levels. The following is undisputed science, even among scientific critics of global warming, because of the isotopic ratio data.

There is a natural "carbon cycle" that recycles CO2. But it's a delicate balance and we're messing it up.

Look at this graph. (and see the edit at the end)

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

The little squiggles are nature doing its' thing. CO2 falls a bit during summer when plants are active, and rises during the winter. The huge increase is us, burning fossil fuels. The scientists can actually show that the increased CO2 in the air comes from burning fossil fuels by using "isotopic ratios" to identify that CO2. The natural carbon cycle buried carbon in fossil fuels over a very long time, little bit by little bit. We dig them up and burn them, real fast. That's a problem.

Man is upsetting the balance of nature. We need to fix that.

EDIT FOR 3DM. The atmosphere is well mixed on this timescale. The fact that this is Hawaii data is irrelevant. You asked for a temperate landlocked site. Here's a site from Colorado, which shows exactly the same thing. The host site has hundreds of these.

http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/wdcgg/plot.php?file=co2/monthly/nwr440n1.dat&species=7/9&format=MON

Answer 3

Obviously we can't measure every processes that occurs naturally... that would be rather UNnatural, then! But we can make estimates and those seem to correlate rather well with what we observe.

To answer your question, it is estimated that natural sources produce 150 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year, and man-made sources produce about 7 billion tons each year. That makes the human contribution to the overall carbon dioxide picture about 4.5%. At least, it does if that's all you look at.

The problem is that only considers HALF of the picture. Carbon dioxide isn't just being produced, it's also being removed. And before the industrial revolution, it was being removed at pretty much exactly the rate at which it was being produced - levels were constant for more than a thousand years. So really ANY amount of production on our part is increasing the amount in the atmosphere!

One way of double-checking this is to compare atmospheric concentrations of these things from pre-industrial times to what they are today. Unless some aspect of nature happens to be exactly mimicing our own industrial development (a rather unlikely prospect) there isn't much other place to lay the blame (or credit) for changes other than our own doorstep.

According to the Department of Energy (link 1), atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide has increased by 34% since then, methane (which has 21 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide) by 153%, nitrous oxide (310 times the potential) by 18%, and in addiation there are any number of warming halogens which simply weren't in the atmosphere at all until we put them there.

The conclusions are pretty obvious. I'll let you draw them yourself.

Answer 4

Bob...no.
"science proves"...no, science does not "prove" anything
"undisputed science"...No. Again, no such thing

"The little squiggles are nature doing its' thing. CO2 falls a bit during summer when plants are active, and rises during the winter."...NO. Please keep using this stupid Wikipedia explanation. Those "little squiggles" are not due to plants being active. This is Hawaii you're talking about. Photosynthesis is taking place 365 days a year in Hawaii - and the amount of daylight variation with the seasons does NOT produce that amount of variation on the islands. Somewhere along the way, someone made the valid inference that this is a seasonal variation - the curve matches the seasonal variation in sea surface temperature.

Don't believe me? Find the seasonal variation of CO2 in a landlocked region of comparable latitude and vegetation.


But...to answer the question - and it's a good one - we put about 24 billion tons of fossil fuel emissions into the atmosphere annually. Natural decay of living material is about 10 times that. But there are other natural sources of CO2. A best estimate is that human emissions account for 5% of the total CO2 emissions. You are absolutely right, though, it IS complex. And you WILL have disputes.

Answer 5

IT IS MAN-MADE HERE IS THE CALCULATION TO PROVE IT

not just "I´ve hear"... "people say..."
------------------------------...

So now for the people not believing WE put the CO2 in the atmosphere:

Global atmospheric mass around the earth:
5.148*10^18 kg
=5.148*10^15 t
=5.148*10^12 kt
=5.148*10^9 Mt
=5.148*10^6 Gt
=5,148,000 Gt

Global man-made CO2 (only... it accounts for 70% of all the man-made greenhouse gases):
=24Gt/year

CO2 density=1.98kg/m³
Air density=1.2Kg/m³
Ratio: the CO2 density is around 1.6x the density of air.
This means that for the same weight, CO2 has 1,6 times less molecules (parts)

Now what is the rate we increase CO2 in the atmosphere for sure (counted land use change/deforestation/use of fossil fuels, etc...):

5,148,000 / (24/1.6)=2.9*10^(-6)

Considered in PPM (parts per million) 1 million=10^6

change in PPM = 2.9 * 10^(-6) * 10^(6)
2.9 PPM (per year)

So during the average 1997-2017 period we should increase the PPM concentration by 29PPM

Now look at the measurements:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/image:mauna...

We see an increase of close to 20PPM in the last decade...

THIS IS TOTALLY CONSISTENT WITH MY CALCULATION PUTTING THE MAN MADE CO2 AS CAUSE FOR THE INCREASE IN THE EARTH ATMOSPHERE



If you are not sure of the accuracy of fossil fuel based calculations, check the GHG protocol from the WRI (World Resource Insitute): www.ghgprotocol.com

Answer 6

I don't know but the report I saw the other day is that CO2 output in 2006 was 1.5% less than the previous year so someone must count it.

Answer 7

What makes you think we know so little about it?

Here's a model combining greenhouse gas, solar, ozone, volcanic, and sulfate contributions to global warming. It fits the measurements pretty nicely:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png