With the possibility of the coldest Super Bowl ever coming this week, this story about CO2 concentration seemed appropriate.
Ryan Scott Welch writes:
Anthony as you know, many people don’t know much about the earth’s atmosphere. For example, when questioned about how much CO2 is in our atmosphere most people give me a guess of somewhere between 30% and 70%. When I tell them that CO2 is only 0.04% or really about 395 ppm (parts per million) they generally look at me as if I was speaking some kind of foreign language. The layman simply cannot convert 0.04% of the atmosphere or 395 ppm into anything they can picture or relate to. In searching for some way to help the layman to understand the earth’s atmosphere, CO2, and the human contribution to atmospheric CO2, I came upon the idea of relating a sample of the atmosphere to something that nearly every person has seen, a football stadium.
So, instead of talking about ppm atmosphere, I talk about seats in a stadium. I put together a presentation using football stadium analogy and it goes something like this.
How much atmospheric CO2 is from human activity? If a football stadium represented a sample of our atmosphere, how many seats would be human caused CO2? The Dallas Cowboys Stadium seats 100,000 for special events.
Each seat represents one molecule of gas in our atmosphere.
Nitrogen is 78% of the atmosphere, Oxygen is 21%, and Argon is 0.9% giving you a total of 99.9% of the atmosphere.
So, where is the CO2? CO2 is a trace gas that is only 0.04% of the atmosphere which in this sample = 40 seats.
But of the 40 seats, or parts per 100,000 of CO2 in the atmosphere, 25 were already in the atmosphere before humans relied on hydrocarbon fuels (coal, gas and oil) leaving 15 seats.
And since humans only contribute 3% of all CO2 emitted into the atmosphere each year (97% is from nature), the human contribution is 3% of the 15 remaining seats in our sample. 3% of 15 is 0.45.
So in our stadium sample of 100,000 seats the human contribution of CO2 is less than half of one seat. That is less than one half of one seat from 100,000 seats in a Dallas Stadium sized sample of our atmosphere is human caused CO2.
[NOTE: per Dr. Robert Brown’s comment pointing out an oversight, this half-seat visualization analogy is on a PER YEAR basis, not a total basis – Anthony]
Here is my presentation uploaded on slideshare.net
http://www.slideshare.net/ryanswelch/how-much-atmospheric-co2-is-from-human-activity-23514995
REFERENCES:
Mauna Loa CO2 data: ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt
Wigley, T.M.L., 1983 “The pre-industrial carbon dioxide level.” Climatic Change 5, 315-320 (lowest value of 250 ppm used)
Increasing Atmospheric CO2: Manmade…or Natural? January 21st, 2009 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D. http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/01/increasing-atmospheric-co2-manmade%E2%80%A6or-natural/
Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse System, Geocraft, http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
The Carbon Cycle, the Ocean, and the Iron Hypothesis, Figure based on Sabine et al 2004, Texas A&M University http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/carboncycle.htm
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This long lousy winter is grating on the nerves isn’t it? I think we all need to say that’s a neat little story, maybe not quite right but neat all the same. No need for verbal fireworks.
Ryan Scott Welch makes a very important point about many people’s UNDERSTANDING about the percentage of ALL co2 in our atmosphere. If it is the case that most people tell him somewhere between 30% and 70% then right there is on of the problems fighting against CAGW alarmistm
Ryan, also point out what the IPCC says is the most important greenhouse gas.
Also point out when our planet had 10 TIMES MORE CO2 in the atmosphere.
Also point out that greenhouse growers regularly pump in over 800ppm.
Pointing these things out does not make you right and does not disprove catastrophic warming in the pipeline, it makes THEM think hard and maybe investigate the issues. That’s all.
Willis Eschenbach says: “I agree with Robert Brown. You were doing great until you got to the end. Yes, humans only contribute a small percentage PER YEAR, but over time that addition builds up. For an illustrative example, if you were to save a small percentage of your salary every year, soon it would end up as a large percentage of your savings …”
Just to be stubborn . . . If, 50 years ago, you have a salary of, let’s say, $1,000,000/year. You decide to put into a savings account 3ppm of that salary, which is $3. Now, just the accumulated $3 per year, for 50 years, is $150 dollars. But if you get a guaranteed interest rate of 5% per year, it compounds to be $694 in 50 years. That, of course, is not adjusting for inflation and such, so it is just an intellectual exercise.
Now, I may just be in a state of non-comprehension, but it seems to me that if the amount contributed by humans is about the same percent (3%) every year, and there are other sources in nature contributing the rest (97%) every year, why would the human-contribution build up any more than the nature-contribution? That is, can a tree (or grass or corn plant) tell the difference between a human-created-carbon-dioxide versus a nature-created-carbon-dioxide? Does one tree tell another tree “Don’t use that particular carbon dioxide molecule. You don’t know where it’s been”.
Then, when I look at the Keeling Curve, I see that we have gained about 75 ppm of carbon dioxide in the last 50 years. If I calculate 3% of 75 ppm, I get a little over 2 ppm. Let us even be generous, and say that in the last 50 years, humans have contributed about 3 ppm of the total increase of carbon dioxide. I have a hard time believing that a human-generated 3 ppm out of a total 75 ppm is going to break the bank. In addition, if this amount accumulates because trees and bushes won’t have anything to do with human-generated carbon dioxide, then why hasn’t carbon dioxide accumulated faster? If we are assuming a static-condition on earth, where carbon dioxide (especially man-made stuff) just hangs around forever, shouldn’t we have added an additional 150 ppm over those 50 years, above and beyond what nature is contributing?
Obviously there is some flaw in my logic, so please feel free to beat me up on this.
Cheerleader is hot, now I am too.
WUWT?
What if the atmosphere was suddenly twice as dense. Twice the N, O, Ar and trace gases like CO2, but at the same relative concentration (same ppm). Would global temperatures increase?
And why so much Argon?
richardscourtney says:
What is football?
It is the game which Americans call “soccer”.
Aah, metric football.
chris y says:
January 27, 2014 at 11:38 am
The group is commonly known as the DCC, aka the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.
🙂
So, it’s the DCC causing Global Warming? Who Knew?
“but over time that addition builds up”
I’ll let my plants know that they are not doing their job!
Dissolution of CO2 into the oceans has been happening for as long as the earth has existed
When you visit the IPCC supporters web sites they never talk about the pencil on the foot ball field, they always talk about gigatonnes of carbon per year (Gt/y), small wonder the “layman” thinks that one gas needs to be regulated. (Thanks EPA, could you restrict the SOTU speeches by 60% to reduce the CO2 out of that mans mounth?)
I see that rgbatduke thinks that CO2 molecules are labeled as ‘human produced’ and ‘non human produced’, and that he thinks that Nature treats the ones with the ‘human produced’ label differently than the other ones, only those that have ‘human produced’ on them will stay – all of them – in the atmosphere. Right.
The analogy I’ve read on WUWT that I like is that five reams of copy paper contain 500 sheets apiece, or 2500 total. CO2’s proportion of atmospheric gas is one sheet in that stack. Manmade CO2 is one-third of that page. The US’s proportion of that strip is about 20% of that 1/3, or 1/15th of the total CO2.
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 27, 2014 at 10:59 am
…”However, compare it with something like say cyanide. The percentage of cyanide that someone slips into their business partner’s breakfast may be as small as the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere … but the reality of the world is, some things have effects that go far, far beyond their level of concentration.”
————————————————–
You bring up the concept of the LD50, the dose at which 50% of the recipients die upon exposure. All drugs have an LD50, even aspirin and caffeine. I wonder what the analogous LD50 of CO2 in the environment would be, if there even is an analogy in there. I guess it would be the concentration of CO2 that would cause 50% of the planets exposed to that level to burn up in thermal Armageddon.
I don’t think the human contribtion to CO2 is .5 seats per year. According to the Mauna Loa record, atmospheric CO2 rose from 394.28 ppm in December 2012, to 396.81 ppm in December 2013, and increase of 2.53 ppm in a year. If the human contribibution was to atmospheric CO2 is 3% of the yearly output, then 3% of 2.53 ppm is 0.0759 ppm.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
Great Greyhounds says:
January 27, 2014 at 12:17 pm
They do tend to warms things up…
If the earth as as a system has regulated CO2 from 2000 ppm down to 200 ppm with out the help of humans, the what makes CO2 accumulate??
I submit that most of the rise in atmospheric CO2 is from oceanic outgassing as the earth has warmed from the last Ice Age and the LIA. As the eath warms CO2 rises regardless of any human factor.
JohnWho:
You raise an important issue with your question at January 27, 2014 at 12:04 pm, but before addressing your question I list the issues raised in this thread by the above article.
1.
CO2 is an atmospheric trace gas and the proportion of the atmosphere is hard to visualise.
The above article by Ryan Scott Welch uses seating in a stadium as an analogy to help the visualisation. The analogy seems to be effective but there is dispute as to whether the article ‘goes too far’ in its claims about the amount of CO2 in the air from human activities.
2.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas (GHG) in the atmosphere so warms the Earth’s surface.
Those who understand radiative physics do not dispute that CO2 is a GHG so warms the Earth’s surface. But the effect of additional CO2 in the air is undecided. The climate system responds to any change, and it may enhance (positive feedback) or reduce (negative feedback) any warming from additional CO2 in the air. Available evidence suggests that additional CO2 in the air will induce such trivially small warming that the warming will be indiscernible, but it is possible that the warming could be so great as to be catastrophic. Some people assert that the suggestion from the available evidence is so strong that the possibility of catastrophic warming can be ignored. A few others try to claim that CO2 does not act as a GHG although this contradicts radiative physics.
3.
The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere from human activities is disputed.
This goes to the heart of most objections to the analogy provided in the above article by Ryan Scott Welch. And it is directly addressed by your question; viz.
Some (e.g. the IPCC, Engelbeen, etc.) assert that the carbon cycle is failing to sequester all of the anthropogenic (i.e. man made) emission of CO2. Hence, about half of the anthropogenic emission is accumulating in the atmosphere to cause all of the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration. Some others (e.g. Bart, Salby, etc.) claim the carbon cycle can sequester all of the total CO2 emission (both natural AND anthropogenic) but is adjusting to changed global temperature with a result being the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration which is entirely natural. And some others (e.g. me and two co-authors, etc.) assess that available data does not indicate if the cause of the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration is entirely natural, or entirely anthropogenic, or some combination of natural and anthropogenic causes.
I hope these responses to issues raised in the thread is helpful to the discussion.
Richard
Re: Janice at 12:11pm
And of those $694 government(s) [plants] want about 50% ….leaving 347 ish left…8D>
Roy UK says:
January 27, 2014 at 12:01 pm
“Please do not get me started on the “World” series of baseball where only teams from the USA can play….”
Oh no the USA must have annexed Toronto, which is going to be news to the Canadians : )
Realist says: @ur momisugly January 27, 2014 at 11:04 am
Try these two peer reviewed papers:
Lesson from the past: present insolation minimum holds potential for glacial inception 2007
Can we predict the duration of an interglacial? Fall 2012
That paper goes on to say
” … thus, the first major reactivation of the bipolar seesaw would probably constitute an indication that the transition to a glacial state had already taken place….”
The bipolar seesaw is the melting of the arctic and the ice building in the Antarctica that we have been seeing for the last couple of decades just in case you did not know.
This paper also gives the solar insolation and CO2 for termination of several interglacials. Current values are
Holocene: insolation = 474 and CO2 = 400 ppmv
MIS 7e – insolation = 463 W m−2, CO2 = 256 ppmv
MIS 11c – insolation = 466 W m−2, CO2 = 259-265 ppmv
MIS 13a – insolation = 500 W m−2, CO2 = 225 ppmv
MIS 15a – insolation = 480 W m−2, CO2 = 240 ppmv
MIS 17 – insolation = 477 W m−2, CO2 = 240 ppmv
It is a good way to remind people we may be at the tail end of the Holocene GRAPH and that is where attention should focus. Are we headed into glaciation? Who the heck knows the battle is still raging. But I some times wonder what the real thought of world leaders are on the subject.
You can also toss in: Carbon starvation in glacial trees recovered from the La Brea tar pits, southern California
richardscourtney says:
January 27, 2014 at 12:41 pm
“…
CO2 is a greenhouse gas (GHG) in the atmosphere so warms the Earth’s surface.
…”
No, the last time I checked, the only thingie that warms the surface of the earth is the sun.
CO2 can not warm anything, it can transfer energy and slow the rate of a heat transfer but warm?
Nah.
Despite that, football players don’t avoid getting hurt. Their rate of severe injuries, especially from concussions, is notorious and likely considerably exceeds that of rugby players’. Their shoulder pads and helmets allow them to attack more aggressively and also to inflict more damage from such a hard shell.
Of the human produced CO2 that is retained in the atmosphere, how much of that retention is due to ocean warming?
That is, if the ocean is exuding more CO2 than it is absorbing, would that cause a ‘back up’ of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere relative to the case if the absorption/emission of CO2 were in equilibrium?
Yes, the cyanide example is true. I’ve heard the same thing about ricin. Two points and they have already been made in bits above. (1). CO2 is not ricin or cyanide. While that example may point out small doses of things can cause great pain, each has to be analyzed on its own merits. It is the quintessential apples and oranges comparison. (2) Those levels, especially on an essential gas for life on earth, should immediately set off the B.S. detector and warrant greater inspection. Which, upon examples of historical CO2 levels alone, strongly suggest the risk of CAGW is extremely low and the idea of tremendously expensive mitigation investment is not worth pursuing.
The above example can also be shown well by creating a 100 x 100 spreadsheet, making the columns a rows small enough to fit on one 8.5×11 then coloring in 4 dots. I’ve used it as a starter for people to get people to start to question the rhetoric. I then encouraged them to do their own research. Be a skeptic for 1 month then come back and try to convince me I’m off side. I’ve had full believers come back as full skeptics. The worst I’ve had is somebody come back to me and say, “i see your point, but I still think it is a problem”. (At least they get that 97% of scientists claim . . . b.s. out of their head). Then we look at the economics, and how putting resources into that crap takes resources away from TRUE environmental problems and by the end of the process, I’ve never had a non-convert.. I honestly believe, it is through the TRUE environmentalists, as I’m sure many people on this site are, will we get the charlatans move along to their next scam. The problem is so many people are so invested in being “right” instead of “learning”, they are very afraid/ashamed to admit they are wrong.
One other thing, the immediate feedback about the underestimation of human induced contribution and how it was immediately refuted by people who fully fall into the “hated by Mann” club, is one reason why this sight is excellent. The pursuit of truth, not dogma.
Roy UK.
Thanks for the slight, cousin, but Canadians have been playing football for over a hundred years. We also play soccer.
I have to chime in & concur with those who have pointed out concentration is irrelevant. This is a generally reasonable presentation that we have filled perhaps up to 15 seats ( or less – I won’t debate the merits of that) and that may help the lay person visually understand the concentration but it also would leave the lay person with the impression that because the concentration is small that perhaps it doesn’t matter We all certainly can come up with analogs where concentration and effect are not proportional and by implying that it does only gives ammunition to CAGW supporters who view skeptics as ignorant & unknowledgeable on the subject matter.
What we really need is a simple lay person explanation for climate sensitivity to CO2 and the range of uncertainty and effects of said sensitivity or perhaps a lay person explanation for what weather looked like in the past & what it looks like today & how weather hasn’t fundamentally changed (say over the last 100 yrs) and that the whole concept of a global average temperature is really nothing more than an academic curiosity compared to local / regional variations in weather we actually experience.