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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Examples of the horrors of CO2 are always expressed in the largest numerical form that is available i.e. “hundreds of billions of tonnes are emitted annually”. Big numbers make for big impressions. But when expressed as a percentage the ‘horror’ becomes a ‘say-what?’ event. Billions of tonnes suddenly become fractions of a single percentage point. Sadly most people are at home with ‘billions’ (or millions or whatever) but are unable to appreciate a mathematical function like percentage. An article like this goes a long way towards explaining it to these people but you can also see why the protagonists offer up their statistics in BIG scary numbers instead of small ‘say-what?’ percentages.
From reading the piece, I get the impression that it’s been edited to correct some readers’ concerns:
Other than that … this is just an illustration for the layman to help him grasp the complexities in crude, simple, approximate terms … which means it will be wrong.
Don’t be overthinking the presentation … it’s not meant to be science, just a simple graphics aid.
The worse analogy is the one the fear mongers use, comparing CO2 in the atmospehre to cyanide or otherpoisons in the body.
The physics are clear that CO2 is a ghg, but it is not clear at all it will lead to some sort of catastrophic outcome at current or likely future levels. CO2 has not caused catastrophe in the past, it is not doing so now, and it is increasingly clear it is not likely to cause some sort of catastrophe anytime soon.
The simple fact is we have no clue how much of the increased CO2 in the atmosphere is CO2 added by humans. Nature adds most of the CO2 to the atmosphere and nature removes most of the CO2 from the atmosphere. It is clearly possible for the human contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere to double while at the same time the total CO2 in the atmosphere could be reduced. The opposite is equally true and in fact is likely what we are seeing. That is a general warming trend after the mini ice age has forced the oceans to release CO2 and at the same time reduced their ability to absorb more CO2 and in fact 99.99% of all the increased CO2 in the atmosphere may well be from this phenomena alone and not from human created CO2.
The next confounding factor is with CO2 having such a small effect on global warming (both the actual measurable effect and the computed effect based on theories) it is impossible to know if CO2 has warmed our atmosphere at all. That is CO2 may indeed create a tiny warmng effect based on it’s 1% or so ability to affect global warming while at the same time it would be possible and even likely that water vapor with it’s 97% effect might cool the atmosphere by more then the CO2 would warm it.
The third factor that cannot be ignored is, thanks to those who knowingly have exaggarated CO2′ s ability to warm the atmosphere the fact that temperatures have not increased in 17 years while at the same time CO2 has increased proves beyond a doubt they are wrong. Simple as that! You can claim that CO2 increases global warming all you want to you can make your computer models and predict the future but when facts prove you to be wrong then you are wrong and the theory is wrong and CO2 is NOT the amazing heat storing/reflecting all powerful force it is claimed to be. Atmospheric CO2 increased; global warming did not, hmmmmmm!!
I think the point is that most people do not know what percentage of the atmosphere is CO2. I have asked that question to AGW believers many times and I usually get the 20-25 % answer.
As Welch says in his article :
“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.”
He does not say anthing about warming, but rather produces a more simple way for simple people to get an idea of what .04% is.
I myself prefer to illustrate this by taking a sheet of paper and marking off 1 inch increments from 0-10. This would represent 1,000,000 parts. (ya’ll know where this is going but just in case I will continue). Each inch would then represent 100,000 parts of the million. Divide the first inch into 10 equal segments, each segment being 1/10 of an inch and representing 10,000 parts of the million. Divide each 1/10 of an inch into 10 equal segments each segment being 1/100 of an inch and representing 1,000 parts of the million. Divide the 1/100th of an inch into 10 equal segments each segment being 1/1000th of an inch and representing 100 parts of the million. Now color the first 400 parts per million (if you can see it ), that’s what .04% is. No comment on warming/cooling, no claim of what CO2 does or doesn’t do, just a simple way to realize how small .04% is.
Would not the increase in Co2 only be 12 seats? not 15? (280 to 400).
But yea, I sure would hate to be that less than half a person filling that seat!
I think it might be interesting to measure what the CO2 concentration is in the air in Dallas Cowboy’s Stadium when its seats are fully occupied by 100,000 people viewing a game. I would assume a portion of the CO2 they emit with each and every breath they take will pool for a while in the semi-enclosed bowl of the stadium. Thus the CO2 levels are likely to be higher than the air surrounding the stadium. My understanding is that CO2 levels in a home are about twice what they are outside. It would be interesting then to see what people would think about a scientific discipline that considered the very act of life itself to be a pollutant.
This is a Globe Warming Seat – You MUST use averages over the entire game (er, year) to feel meaningful results. It is not 1/2 of a seat being feeled up (er, filled) but represeats two people sitting in one seat: That one exsex Cheerleader is obviously sitting in your lap, thereby raising everyone’s temperature, pressure, and humility (er, humidity).
Lots of assumptions.
We know the Team has fudge, manipulated and down right lied about temperature data, so why does every one just go along with the CO2 data and all there assumptions and interpretations?
THE ACQUITTAL OF CARBON DIOXIDE by Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD
ON WHY CO2 IS KNOWN NOT TO HAVE ACCUMULATED IN THE ATMOSPHERE & WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH CO2 IN THE MODERN ERA by Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD
I am sure Ferdinand Engelbeen will be along in just a minute to draw the curtain closed once again.
Upon reading the title and first paragraph, I thought this story was going to an entirely different place:
By the 4th quarter of a football game, what is the average CO2 concentration measured in prime seats on the 50 yard line?
Friends:
The American sense of humour continues to bemuse me.
Several Americans failed to get any laughs from Brad Keyes and took him seriously!
The question from R. de Haan asking “What’s a Cowboys Stadium?” was a joke.
The reply from Box of Rocks asking “What is football?” continued the joke.
My answer to Box of Rocks which defined “football” continued the joke.
And Colorado Wellington assessed by answer saying “Aah, metric football” continued the joke.
Those who have taken any of these comments seriously are spoiling continuation of the joke. OK?
Richard
I think that this analogy would be improved if the fans in those 40 chairs were scattered around the stadium holding up 1’x1′ space blankets, to keep the rest of the 999,960 fans toasty warm.
Willis has often insisted people actually quote him when addressing his articles and comments. Yet, he didn’t quote Mr. Welch in his reply at 10:59AM, in which he states “Your argument seems to be, CO2 is only a trivially small part of the atmosphere, so we can ignore it.”
That’s fine; I’m not finding fault. I just don’t think Willis could’ve quoted the author to back his contention that Mr. Welch was arguing we can ignore our trivially small portion of atmospheric CO2. Perhaps I missed it, but I don’t see where Mr. Welch broached that topic at all. It seems to me Mr. Welch was merely, and graphically, showing the disconnect between the common misconception about atmospheric CO2 vs. the reality.
As for Willis comparing CO2 to cyanide, I get his point: Something can have an effect all out of proportion to its concentration. But, is cyanide a fair comparison? Isn’t adding cyanide like throwing the proverbial monkey wrench into the wheels of life? Cyanide has such a powerfully disruptive effect only a little is needed. But CO2 is nothing like that at all. Rather, CO2 is essential to life on earth. Therefore, it seems to me quite likely you’d have to add a massive amount of it to the atmosphere before it finally becomes “too much of a good thing”. In other words, it is more like drinking water vs. ingesting cyanide. Obviously, there is a point where drinking too much water is detrimental, even life threatening. But adding an extra drop to your glass is utterly meaningless.
If I can stay with my water analogy for a little longer – wouldn’t it be fair to say our planet has actually been thirsty for CO2 for quite some time? I think the biosphere appreciates that we’ve increased its miserly ration.
I think the author was trying to present to the layman simply what .04% or what 400 ppm represents. If the general populace thinks that CO2 represents 30 – 70% of the atmosphere, I think that this is a good exercise since the general populace is much more interested in football than CO2 or “climate change”. I agree that the last part goes off the rails, but I get what the author was trying to do. I don’t think the nitpicking by RGB and others is helpful.
It might be better to suggest another analogy to show a better example for the layman.
If you have $25 in pennies 400 ppm = 1 penny
or
.04% = 1/2500th of the total
or
in a 2,500 seat stadium it would represent 1 seat
etc.
someone here might come up with a better example for the layman…
I think the 3% contribution by humans is too much for the layman who thinks that CO2 represents 30 – 70% of the atmosphere to get excited about, and kind of muddies the water. Better left for a separate discussion.
The point that .04% of a 100,000 seat stadium = 40 seats, – 40 seats seem like a lot to the football layman.
Tom in Florida says:
January 27, 2014 at 12:55 pm
I use a one pound bag of long grain white rice, which contains about 29,000 grains. I take about a third of the bag and add three grains to represent pre-industrial CO2, then drop in a fourth to get the level up to now. To show the Cambrian, add 70 more “CO2” grains.
Leave the 7800 nitrogen grains white, dye the 2100 oxygen red, the 90 Ar yellow & four CO2 black, then dump 300 blue H2O grains on top of them.
hunter says:
January 27, 2014 at 12:53 pm
The worse analogy is the one the fear mongers use, comparing CO2 in the atmospehre to cyanide or otherpoisons in the body.
The physics are clear that CO2 is a ghg, but it is not clear at all it will lead to some sort of catastrophic outcome at current or likely future levels. CO2 has not caused catastrophe in the past, it is not doing so now, and it is increasingly clear it is not likely to cause some sort of catastrophe anytime soon.
__________________________________
Agreed. It’s a question of concentration and it’s effect. As I posted above there is an LD50 (or LC50) for exposure of chemicals to biological systems that will cause death. Every chemical has a point at which it will disrupt the biologic system to cause death, but there’s also range in which the chemical may have a therapeutic effect. This is called the therapeutic window. As you increase the dosage the therapeutic effect goes up but so does adverse effects such as death. The dose has to be high enough to provide therapy but not so high to cause too many adversse effects.
For fun I looked up the LD50 (rats) of a couple compounds: The LD50 is expressed as mg of chemical per kg of body weight (1 mg/kg=1ppm)
Aspirin 1.5g/kg (1500 ppm)
Caffeine 355mg/kg (355 ppm)
Potassium Cyanide 10mg/kg (10 ppm)
Heroin 21mg/kg (21 ppm)
Kelvin Vaughan says:
January 27, 2014 at 10:51 am
So less than half a seat warms up the rest of the stadium by 1°C.
—
Yep .. and the other 99,999.55 seats do absolutely nothing. Or to be more precise, diddly squat.
It is not about the ppm. It is as described by many about the unknown forcings and feedbacks.
What is CO2’s dissapation rate anyhow? How long will the additional man made stuff hang around in varied scenarios?
I have not viewed a definitive provable answer to that question to date.
Just my take,,,,,,,
Yes, the atmospheric CO2 concentration has risen for 150 years. Why should we assume the 15 seats representing the increase is do to human emissions? Regarding the balance of uptake and release of CO2 in nature, people seem to have a problem differentiating between rate constants and rates. The slight increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration might easily be swallowed up because the rate constant for uptake would not necessarily change. The rate is the product of the rate constant and the concentration of CO2 in the atm in a simple model, or the product with the sum of various rate constants in a more complex model. The equilibrium might shift slightly, because there is the equivalent of a new source of CO2 having a new rate adding to total CO2. The yearly addition of hCO2 is depleted over another period of years ( with slightly over a 5yr half life by 14C bomb data). With a constant new supply of hCO2, the equilibrium CO2 level would increase to a new steady-state level about 7x higher than the yearly amount. However, the yearly amount has increased exponentially since 1751 (and probably before that), The CO2 increase measured at Mauna Loa has a shape that cannot be accounted for by anthropogenic emissions alone. The curve can’t be fit with any reasonable choices of historical atm CO2 level and rates of hCO2 emission and uptake without also including very substantial natural CO2 increases.
Willis Eschenbach says:
January 27, 2014 at 10:59 am
…”However, compare it with something like say cyanide. …”
I think a better analogy would be prescription medications. These drugs all produce side effects that are not good for humans. However, as all descriptions say, your doctor has determined that the benefits outweigh the side effects when prescribing the drugs. I take methotrexate for RA , 15 mg/wk. This produces the desired effect of reducing the pain and deterioration of my joints while keeping the side effects to a minimum. Previous dosage of 20mg/week produced no better benefit but did increase the side effects to an uncomfortable level. 10/mg per week had very little side effects but also very little benefit. It’s like the Goldilocks syndrome; some is too little, some is too much, and some is just right. When it comes to atmospheric CO2 and life I believe we know what is too little (5000 ppm). So the debate simply comes down to “What are the just right conditions for the Earth and how much CO2 will give us that”. Of course, the debate should first be “What are the just right conditions for the Earth”. My guess is that as long as there are more than two people there will be two or more opinions on that.
Stephen Rasey says: @ur momisugly January 27, 2014 at 1:04 pm
Upon reading the title and first paragraph, I thought this story was going to an entirely different place:
By the 4th quarter of a football game, what is the average CO2 concentration measured in prime seats on the 50 yard line?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That was exactly what I thought. Someone managed to measure the CO2 levels with all those people breathing hard and shouting.
rgbatduke says:
January 27, 2014 at 10:46 am
“At the moment, however, we have no reliable way to partition natural warming from human induced warming.”
And there’s the rub. While I may agree that there is a tad of an obfuscation in the half-seat analogy, climate science has pretended for some time now to have successfully separated the fly sh*t from the black pepper. It hasn’t, in reality. And what’s more, It CAN’T, because the thing being measured can’t be separated. There is no magical Blue Heat and Red Head to separate from the Purple Heat.
Missing a sentnce in my last post.:
Should be “we know what is too little (5000 ppm)
OK I see what happened, I was using less than and greater than signs causing the error.
The sentence missing is:
“we know what is too little (less than 150 ppm) and what is too much (greater than 5000 ppm).
If CO2 is such a powerful agent in the atmosphere, how could the surface of the earth froze solid at the end of the Ordovician when CO2 levels were an order of magnitude higher than today? The earth with its atmosphere has never been static, but rather constantly changing due to the existence of life.