New studies have found that most of the CO2 emitted by man does not stay in the atmosphere as previously believed. Instead, it is absorbed by terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans.
Some studies have suggested that this absorbing ability has been decreasing and that the airborne fraction has started to increase. Hence, with such contradicting findings, it is imperative that an accurate outlook is achieved to be able to predict climate change more efficiently.
To figure out if the airborne fraction is in fact increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol looked through and analyzed atmospheric carbon dioxide and emission data from the past 150 years. He found that there has been no increase in the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide since 1850, or even during the last five decades.
This could indeed change how scientists are assessing future climate change due to CO2, such as warming, since the phenomenons they are using to correlate them are at risk of being faulty.
These research findings have been published in Geophysical Research Letters.
Comments
Oh man..it's like this, conservative scientists dismiss Global warming and liberal scientists overstate global warming..and the rest of us don't know what to believe!lol
It's amazing how much the info has changed.
It's not new that most of the anthropogenic CO2 is absorbed - that is well-known. What is suspected is that the capacity of the CO2 sinks (mostly the ocean, but also terrestrial sinks) is limited, and that, over time, less of the CO2 will be absorbed in this way. Previous studies found that that already might be happening - this new one found only an insignificant trend. That does not change the fact that the CO2 concentration has risen from about 280 ppm to about 380 ppm in the last 150 years.
This is all so confusing to me! :-0
Stephan,
Thank you for your comment. The premise of this study was that because scientists have been predicting a decrease in the ability for CO2 to be absorbed into oceans and ecosystems, the study was done to find out if this could be proven.
In the study it was concluded that there has been no increase in the airborne fraction of CO2 or any decrease in the Earth's absorbing ability of CO2 for the last 150 years nor in the last five decades. This is positive and important proof and not an insignificant trend as you claim.
There is no evidence at all of the decrease in the terrestrial absorbing of CO2 scientists claimed had already started.
So justifiably, the study's researchers are suggesting for scientists not to make any climate predictions based on this factor, since it has been proven to be faulty.
Additionally, the CO2 concentration having risen is irrelevant if it is not in the atmosphere where it causes the alleged warming of the planet
Believe what you want but don't waste precious resourses...Be Brown, be Black, be White, be Yellow, be Green....Just don't be a SLOB...
I wish they would make up their minds. The paper just the other week had two conflicting articles, both with scientific proof, in the same section on the same day.
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