Earth helping put brakes on climate change

[Tonington]

Ocean acidification doesn't get talked about much in the climate change debates, but it's one side of the coin, AGW is the other, and they're equally serious problems.

It is talked about more often these days. I know I've been mentioning it here on this forum for a few years now. It's a very active area of research.

The airborne fraction of carbon dioxide appears to be stable currently, so I'm not sure how Earth is putting on the brakes. If the airborne fraction were decreasing, I would call that applying the brakes. But that's not the case. The carbon sinks don't appear to be increasing the rate at which the carbon is deposited, at least on the net balance. The oceans will continue to acidify, and depending on the patterns of precipitation some plants may even decrease the uptake of additional carbon. C4 photosynthesizing plants like grasses, which only account for about 5% of total plant biomass perform better under drought and high temperature conditions, while C3 plants which make up about 95% of total plant biomass suffer due to stress.

 

[beaker]

It is talked about more often these days. I know I've been mentioning it here on this forum for a few years now. It's a very active area of research.

The airborne fraction of carbon dioxide appears to be stable currently, so I'm not sure how Earth is putting on the brakes. If the airborne fraction were decreasing, I would call that applying the brakes. But that's not the case. The carbon sinks don't appear to be increasing the rate at which the carbon is deposited, at least on the net balance. The oceans will continue to acidify, and depending on the patterns of precipitation some plants may even decrease the uptake of additional carbon. C4 photosynthesizing plants like grasses, which only account for about 5% of total plant biomass perform better under drought and high temperature conditions, while C3 plants which make up about 95% of total plant biomass suffer due to stress.

Putting on the brakes isn't a term the authors of the study used from what I can see. It appearss like it is more of the media stretching for a headline. The research team release, here,

Earth still absorbing CO2 even as emissions rise, says new CU-led study | University of Colorado Boulder

is considerably more concerned about global warming than you would get from hearing that the brakes had been applied.

“What we are seeing is that the Earth continues to do the heavy lifting by taking up huge amounts of carbon dioxide, even while humans have done very little to reduce carbon emissions,” said Ballantyne. “How long this will continue, we don’t know.”

“We’re already seeing climate change happen despite the fact that only half of fossil fuel emissions stay in the atmosphere while the other half is drawn down by the land biosphere and oceans,” Alden said. “If natural sinks saturate as models predict, the impact of human emissions on atmospheric CO2 will double.”

“The good news is that today, nature is helping us out,” said White also a professor in CU’s geological sciences department. “The bad news is that none of us think nature is going to keep helping us out indefinitely. When the time comes that these carbon sinks are no longer taking up carbon, there is going to be a big price to pay.”

It doesn't look like something we can get all complacent about.

 

[petros]

Earth still absorbing CO2 even as emissions rise, says new CU-led study

Why would it stop?

 

[beaker]

Why would it stop?

Here is the thing, if you read information you learn the answer to questions you apparently have about the subject matter in the information, You will be pleasantly surprised if you but give it a try.

 

[petros]

You don't know why would it stop ?

 

[beaker]

You don't know why would it stop ?

I understand why the university of Colorado team that produced this research believe it will stop, and it isn't all that complicated, you should try and read the release I provided.

 

[petros]

I understand why the university of Colorado team that produced this research believe it will stop, and it isn't all that complicated, you should try and read the release I provided.

No you don't understand why because they don't understand it either and that shows you never did bother to read the ****ing thing.


There is zero mention of CO2 uptake stopping.

According to the study, the scientists observed decreased CO2 uptake by Earth’s land and oceans in the 1990s, followed by increased CO2 sequestering by the planet from 2000 to 2010. “Seeing such variation from decade to decade tells us that we need to observe Earth’s carbon cycle for significantly longer periods in order to help us understand what is occurring,” said Ballantyne.

That is a good idear.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

How much has agricultural land use increased during that time? How much has CaCO2 discharges from river increased along with the ag land use that stirred it all up?

I don't know offhand, why not try finding it out yourself?

The ocean pH has be all over the place and life has done well....

Not sure what that means, I think you must have left something out of that sentence. You mean "ocean pH has been all over the place...?" Sure, and increased acidity is associated with mass extinctions.

 

[Ron in Regina]

Here is the thing, if you read information you learn the answer to questions you apparently have about the subject matter in the information, You will be pleasantly surprised if you but give it a try.

That's sort'a what the Mormons on my doorstep on the weekends
say, before they hand me some literature and head for the next
doorstep.

 

[petros]

How does 16 Gigatonnes sound?

 

[Tonington]

How does 16 Gigatonnes sound?

Of CaCO2? Sounds very, very wrong.

 

[SLM]

That's sort'a what the Mormons on my doorstep on the weekends
say, before they hand me some literature and head for the next
doorstep.

You could always send the pups to answer the door. Probably would reduce the amount of paper recycling from unread literature. That's sort of good for the environment, right?

 

[petros]

Of CaCO2? Sounds very, very wrong.

Somewhat yup. 16 Gigatonne is the average total river discharge of silt per year and we'll take from there. I'll dig up the carbonate percentage of the total discharge soon enough but that won't include what is discharged in solution.

While I'm doing that how about you dig into how many tonnes of salts are discharged from land based sources (human and natural) that are entering the oceans.

Next time you see a pretty blue river being used as a reason to save the planet keep in mind it's blue from limestone.

 

[Tonington]

I meant the CaCO2 part...I'm sure you meant CaCO3. Carbonate is CaCO3. At the present time, the ocean as a whole s supersaturated with respect to calcite and aragonite, the most stable forms of carbonate. But some areas are already experiencing undersaturation, which means dissolution of exoskeleton in calcifying invertebrates. The pH change also produces negative impacts on vertebrate physiology.

And the global export of CaCO3 from rivers into the ocean is 0.4 Pg of carbon per year. The total flux of carbon into rivers is 1.1 Pg C per year.
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s10_8223.pdf

 

[beaker]

No you don't understand why because they don't understand it either and that shows you never did bother to read the ****ing thing.


There is zero mention of CO2 uptake stopping.

Odd that you pent so much time looking for it, here for your benefit from the 6th paragraph, is this quote, “If natural sinks saturate as models predict, the impact of human emissions on atmospheric CO2 will double.”


I realize that is just a bit further than you normally read a scientific report, but hang in there keep trying.