Global Warming experts help please.?

Question

The world population has more than doubled since 1950. The number of people driving today is about quadruple than in 1950. So why isn't the level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere higher than reported? Just thinking about all the people exhaling CO2, all the trees we cut down daily, all of the cars on the streets, shouldn't the CO2 levels be much higher if it is man made? From what I have read, CO2 levels have risen about 15-20% since 1950, why not higher?

Answer 1

Technology has improved vastly in the past 50+ years. Global warming is a scare tactic to get more restrictive laws passed so that the government can have even more control over the population. Ever since the cold war ended, they have been trying to create a state of fear to seize control of the American public. This "crisis" called global warming has finally done it. The general public believes almost everything they read and are overreacting by calling the congressmen and senators to have laws passed. This is exactly what they want. Al Gore just happen to jump on the bandwagon and buy stock in a few companies that are trying to "green" up the world. Then he makes his ridiculous movie.

Answer 2

You may be right about the 15-20% since 1950, but it is about 40% since 1880. the rate of increase however is increasing (the bell curve is steepening). But even at that, 15% is 15% more than normal and just using common sense, would affect the world climate by 15% as well (globally). The first article addresses the fact that the Sun has actually been in a lower power stage since 1980. And if the Sun has been at a "lower setting" of say 5% lowewr than normal, the effects you would see from higher levels ofCO2 would be less noticeable. When the Sun begins to warm (and it is certain to do so as it goes thru its cycles) we will see higher temperatures, more hurricanes, and other weather related extremes. Already the cases of Dengue fever (a mosquito borne desease) is in Asia and they expect a record number of cases and deaths associated with it. If you have been paying attention to the weather in Europe and Asia, you will see that they are experiencing record events now...
the people who ignore science and insult those who research it are fools...If we do nothing and hope it just goes away...and it is for real, we are dooming millions. The refusal to believe that humans are responsible for a heated Earth is like believing that medical doctors are quacks and not seeing them when you are sick.

The affects that 15% has on the the climate is only part of it. If the Earth is only slightly warmer, it begins to affect frozen tundra and low areas filled with methane gases...Methane gases are a greenhouse gas and are probably worse than CO2. The problem is that we may soon enter a period of "No Return" as the Earth warms. And once we enter it, it may be thousands of years before Mother Nature can reverse it.

Answer 3

U are right but the environmentalist don't consider that it is not just the trees but every green plant . The plants are a variable if they cant recycle but X amount today in a short time they will be able to do even moor. This goes all the way down to algae ,that is what NASA was considering for deep space . Also the green plants in the water etc. The weeds are doing there part also the grass. The other day they were saying that the poison Ivy was much more toxic and bigger than normal. The plant takes in the CO2 and gives us the O2 and the plants keep the C to make the food for the plants. It is the amount of CO2 that we produce and not global warming.

Answer 4

For starters, exhaling does not contribute to global warming. When you breathe you're just breathing carbon that's been part of the natural carbon cycle for a long time. It's when we burn fossil fuels and release carbon that's been trapped for ages and ages that we throw the natural carbon cycle out of balance.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/models/carbon_cycle/intro_global.html

And therein lies the answer to your question. While our CO2 emissions have increased drastically, they're still a small fraction of the total CO2 emitted by natural processes as part of that natural carbon cycle. There's about 2 billion tons of carbon leeway that the cycle absorbs more than it emits, so back when we were only emitting 3 billion tons of carbon per year, we were just throwing the cycle slightly out of balance. Now that it's more like 6 billion tons per year, it's gotten further out of balance.

Doubling our CO2 emissions would only double atmospheric CO2 concentrations if our emissions were directly and completely responsible for atmospheric concentrations. But there are other processes which account for most of the atmospheric carbon concentrations, and our emissions only increase the level by a little bit each year. That little bit adds up after a few decades, which is why we've seen a ~20% rise since 1950.

Answer 5

Its quite simple, CO2 is absorbed by our oceans and water reservoirs, and stock at the bottom... But our Oceans are getting saturated and more accumulate into the atmosphere. Which in turn doesn`t really change anything, as CO2 is a pretty rare gas in the atmosphere and his ratio is under 0.1% of the whole atmosphere! Also, the real global warming will happened at high altitude and not at ground levels, as believed by the GW hype. What is warming our lower atmosphere is mainly water vapor and heat retentions from the trees. In Canada and USA, our forests are expending in size instead of shrinking too... In reality the phenomenon in place is much more complicated than a simple green house effect. But most scientists will only look at what they want to look... Its sad to see, but its human nature.

Answer 6

The numbers are roughly in the same ballpark. CO2 has risen in the atmosphere from 311 ppmv in 1950 to 383 ppmv today. Since the mass of the earth's entire atmosphere is 5.27 x 10^9 gigatons, that rise represents about 576 gT more CO2 in the air.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/law/law.html
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

The total amount of CO2 added to the air from all sources of fossil fuel use (1950-2004) is 932 gT.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/tre_glob.htm

That means about 60% of the CO2 we emit ends up in the air.

The difference is the amount of CO2 absorbed by natural CO2 sinks, principally the oceans. As the oceans become more saturated with CO2, they will be able to absorb less and less. Also, they will absorb less as they get warmer. This means that the time is coming when the earth will be warm enough that the oceans will no longer absorb CO2 and will begin re-emitting some of the CO2 they absorbed in the 20th century. Currently this switchover from sink to source is projected to occur sometime around 2100. If we don't have a handle on our CO2 emissions by that time, we're screwed.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11089968&dopt=Citation

Answer 7

Basiclly, there are natural sinks. The carbon cycles between the atmosphere, the oceans, the terrestrial biosphere, and the sediments. The sediments, which contain the carbon for a long time, contains the oil,etc. When it's releases in to the atmospehere (human emissions) it is also absorbed by the other reservoires. This is why they talk about fertilizing the oceans; they want to remove the carbon from the oceans by getting planktons absorb them, and, as they sink to the bottom, be integrated in to the sediments again, where the oil came from. So carbon is removed from one of these four sinks, and distributed among the other three.

Answer 8

Yeah, I think the technology has gotten much better. Our vehicles today emit much less than those of 1950. But then again, we have many more cars now than in 1950...

Answer 9

The technology has also improved since 1950's.

Answer 10

Nature working to correct the problem. We need to reforest the lands to give it a helping hand.