From the “giant sucking sound” department and Utrecht University comes this bit of science saying what most of us already knew – nature is better at removing CO2 than any man-made scheme. Apologies to Spaceballs “MegaMaid”- Anthony
Natural weathering processes are removing CO2 from the air in a wide range of environments across continents and ocean. Until recently these ‘CO2 vacuum cleaners’ were often studied separately, without properly examining their complex interactions. Now, an international team of earth scientists is proposing an integrated vision of the many factors that influence the removal of atmospheric CO2 from the highest mountain peaks to the deep ocean floor, including their various interactions. The so-called weathering continuum provides a much more complete picture on what controls and regulates the natural removal of CO2, which could help in the development of enhancing weathering techniques.
The type of rock worn away by wind and water, the chemical reactions that break down rocks and convert them into soils and muds: all of this influences the rate at which CO2 is removed naturally from the air and is stored in the soils or the ocean. The efficiency of these CO2 vacuum cleaners has varied substantially in the Earth’s past, which had researchers puzzled for over a century.
Weathering Continuum
Viewing the numerous chemical reactions of minerals on land and in the ocean as a single entity – a weathering continuum – now emerges from a new research paper, published in Nature Geoscience, involving numerous experts from various disciplines. “The main conclusion from our work is that the various CO2 fluxes on land and in the ocean are very closely linked. This governs the efficiency of the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere,” says Dr Gerrit Trapp-Müller, a postdoctoral researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the lead author of the study, which he did when he was still affiliated with Utrecht University.
Previous research had already shown that it is possible that the natural weathering processes can practically come to a halt – and sometimes even reverse, when the ocean starts to emit CO2. “Using the analogy of the vacuum cleaner, if intense vacuum cleaning has already filled up the device’s storage unit, it eventually becomes less effective in cleaning – and may even blow out the dust back into your flat.”
Reducing greenhouse effect
Compared to emissions from human activities, the natural processes that remove CO2 are relatively slow. Could this new research help us harness these natural CO2 vacuums to reduce the still increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere?
‘Enhanced weathering’ technologies could help to get somewhere close to the 1.5 or 2.0°C targets of the Paris Agreement, agrees Trapp-Müller. But he also cautions: “If weathering accelerates in some place, it can have consequences for the rest of the chain and the net amount of carbon stored.” The weathering continuum warns of unforeseen consequences of enhanced weathering sites, but also provides guidance for how to harness the full potential of these techniques.
The paper:
Gerrit Trapp-Müller, Jeremy Caves Rugenstein, Daniel J. Conley et al., ‘Earth’s silicate weathering continuum’, Nature Geoscience (2025), https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-025-01743-y
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A rising concentration of CO2 is not a problem at present levels, no matter the source.
A falling concentration of CO2 at present levels would diminish the comfortable margin over starvation we’ve been fortunate to achieve in recent times. That could be a problem.
It’s fine to do research. But not because there’s a problem right now.
Plants are already staving at 425 ppm CO2. Their optimum is 1000 to 1200 ppm
Any program to remove CO2 is an idiot’s game, to benefit ingrown bureaucrats, politicians, and already wealthy folks, all at the expense of all others.
CO2 is a life-giving Gas; We Are in a CO2 Famine
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/we-are-in-a-co2-famine
By Willem Post
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Atmospheric CO2 ppm, human plus natural, it is near the lowest level in 600 million years. See image
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Net-zero by 2050 to-reduce CO2 is a super-expensive suicide pact, to 1) increase command/control by governments, and 2) enable the moneyed elites to become more powerful and richer, at the expense of all others, by using the foghorn of the government-subsidized/controlled Corporate Media to spread scare-mongering slogans and brainwash people, already for at least 40 years.
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Crops in open fields, with CO2 at 420 ppm, require fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and much machinery to have high yields/acre.
Crops in greenhouses, with CO2 at 1200 ppm, require minimal chemicals, have 2 to 3 times higher yields/acre
https://www.masterresource.org/carbon-dioxide/increased-plant-productivity-the-first-key-benefit-of-atmospheric-co2-enrichment/
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CO2 in atmosphere was about 280 ppm during the Little Ice Age. CO2 was 296 ppm in 1900
Plants are on a starvation diet even with CO2 at 421 ppm, in 2023
The CO2 ppm difference is almost entirely due to increased use of fossil fuel, which have been providing about 80% of the world’s primary energy consumption for the past 50 years, even with building highly subsidized wind and solar systems.
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Dr. Sherwood Idso, US Water Conservation Laboratory, Phoenix, Arizona, shows Eldarica pine trees grown with an ambient CO2 at 385 ppm in the mid-1980s, and what happens when CO2 is increased to 535 ppm, 685 ppm, and 835 ppm over 10 years.
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Many plants have already become weak or extinct, along with the fauna they support, due to CO2 at 420 ppm, or less.
As a result, many areas of the world have lost resilience, became arid and deserts during the past 15 million years.
Current CO2 ppm needs to at least double or triple, as proven in laboratories and commercial greenhouses.
Unfortunately, not enough fossil fuel is left over to make that CO2 increase happen.
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Natural cycles drive our climate.
The current temperatures are higher than in 1900 by about 1.5 C, but less than 0.5 C of that can be attributed to CO2. The rest is due to:
1) Long-term cycles, such as coming out of the Little Ice Age,
2) Earth surface changes, due to increased agriculture, deforestation, especially in the Tropics, etc.
3) Urban heat islands, such as about 700 miles from north of Portland, Maine, to south of Norfolk, Virginia, forested in 1850, now covered with heat-absorbing human detritus. Japan, China, India, Europe, etc., have similar heat islands
4) Fossil fuel use
5) Permafrost methane, CH4, which converts to CO2
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CO2 ppm increase from 1979 to 2023 was 421/336 = 1.25, greening increase about 12%, per NASA.
CO2 ppm increase from 1900 to 2023 was 421/296 = 1.42, greening increase about 19%
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Increased greening: 1) Produces oxygen by photosynthesis; 2) Increases world flora and fauna; 3) Increases crop yields per acre; 4) Reduces world desert areas
The ozone layer absorbs 200 to 315 nm UV wavelengths, which would genetically damage exposed lifeforms.
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Energy-related CO2 was 37.55 Gt, or 4.8 ppm in 2023, about 75% of total human CO2.
One CO2 ppm in atmosphere = 7.821 Gt.
Total human CO2 was 4.8/0.75 = 6.4 ppm in 2023. See URLs
CO2, human plus natural, to atmosphere = 421.08 ppm, end 2023 – 418.53, end 2022 = 2.55 ppm; to oceans 2.3 ppm (assumed); to forests and other sinks 1.55 ppm; natural CO2 increase is assumed at zero.
Forests net CO2 absorption = absorption 15.6 Gt – emission 8.1 Gt = 7.6 Gt, or almost 1 ppm
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-satellites-help-quantify-forests-impacts-on-the-global-carbon-budget/
Mauna Loa curve shows a variation of about 9 ppm during a year, due to seasons
Inside buildings, CO2 is about 1000 ppm, greenhouses about 1200 ppm, submarines up to 5000 ppm
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Respiration: glucose + O2 → CO2 + H20 (+ energy)
Photosynthesis: 6 CO2 + 12 H2O (+ sunlight+ chlorophyll) → 1 glucose + 6 O2 + 6 H20
Plants respire 24/7. Plants photosynthesize with brighter light
In low light, respiration and photosynthesis are in balance
In bright light, photosynthesis is much greater than respiration
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Very good summary! I would add two points: additional land or water is not required for these CO2 benefits, and any CO2-caused warming is reduced with each doubling, while the benefits continue to accrue in a linear fashion.
An area of man-made climate change which is vastly overlooked, is reduction of the water table via pumping. This has dried up the creeks in the valleys and increased aridity. Consider the San Joaquin Valley (southern half of the Sacramento-San Joaquin valley) which once sported 700 square mile Lake Tulare, now drained. Consider the evaporation off that, now removed.
Hetch Hetchy annually diverts 265,000 acre feet of water completely out of the drainage and into San Francisco. This diversion stops the San Joaquin river from flowing in the summer.
Before draining, the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta estuary extended to just South of Sacramento along what is now highway 99 near Galt. The Southern Pacific railroad levee adjacent to highway 99 was the edge of the wetland.
There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on our global climate system.
“There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on our global climate system.”
Agreed. And in my view, one of the best demonstrations of why “no real evidence” has ever been forthcoming, is that the theoretical radiative effect of even a doubling of CO2 is massively overwhelmed by energy conversion throughout the depth of the troposphere. More here.
https://www.regulations.gov/comment/EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0194-0305
Without the “greenhouse effect” humans wouldn’t survive. CO2 concentration of fossil fuel use by man is dwarfed by nature. How ‘they’ managed to spin this into a catastrophe shows you the force of the media.
So, living organisms release CO2 and weathering removes it. This has been going on for billions of years. Now puny humans want to interfere with “enhanced weathering” — or did they just say that to keep the grant money flowing.
Pretty sure “The Carbon Cycle” has been around much longer than humans. ! 😉
Thanks god even nature isn’t that good at removing co2 otherwise we would have dropped below 150ppm long time ago = game over.
Any removal at such low levels is dangerous.
“Natural weathering processes are removing CO2 from the air….”
Numerically, how does that compare with the CO2 removal of the green vegetation on this planet? (and in the ocean too I suppose- algae)
I’ve seen some plants that are able to grow several inches in height in a day. That doesn’t seem slow.
The seasonal CO2 cycle is several ppm, that’s massive.
“some plants that are able to grow several inches in height in a day”
It is Spring down here.. I can attest that the grass grows way too quickly…
… because I have to mow the darn stuff !!
Imagine the growth rate at 1000+ ppm.
Forget wooly mammoths. We’d need to clone brontosaurs to keep it all eaten down.
I mow mine as well … and put the carbon … errr … clippings … into the garden. Is that included in the global warming calculation?
CO2 removed from the air by plants, usually returns to the air in a few decades. CO2 removed by weathering won’t get back into the atmosphere until it gets recycled through a volcano.
Ocean processes remove CO2 from the air and precipitate solid CaCO3 (Calcium Carbonate) which deposited on the sea floor as an ooze, with time and pressure this limy ooze becomes limestone rock and is sequestered until a time when that limestone rock is recycled … which is surprisingly fast on a geologic scale, as almost none of the ocean floors are more than 100 million years old—old for a man, or even a tree … very young for a rock.
Every freshman geology student learns the “rock cycle diagram”… I looks like this new paper is an adjunct to this..
Yes. What has also been known, for well over a century (eg Arrhenius) is that lava at the surface emits CO2, leaving a more basic rock behind. The weathering of that rock allows the reverse process – absorption of acid CO2 by that basic rock. That eventually goes into the metamorphic rock, and into the lava, completing the cycle.
These processes are slow, and not much affected by what we do. They can’t respond to our much faster emission of CO2. This paper says that the absorption products go into the ocean, with further acid-base reaction. That doesn’t change anything very much.
I don’t think it is really part of their paper, but they do refer to “‘Enhanced weathering’ technologies”, whereby the more basic igneous rocks are mechanically crushed and exposed. This is the only way something in this cycle could match our current rate of emission.
Sensible until this point, and you had to ruin it. *Sigh*. And on…
It says so in the article
“Compared to emissions from human activities, the natural processes that remove CO2 are relatively slow.”
But it is just arithmetic. Emission from volcanoes is about 3% of human. It has been going on for millions of years and so has rock weathering, and they have stayed mostly in balance (else a big pile-up of CO2 somewhere). Certainly humans haven’t changed
volcanoes, nor the physical process of weathering, although absorption there may increase proportional to the excess CO2 in the air – say to about 5%. Human processes act independently of this long established cycle, and much faster.
It has NOT stayed mostly in balance. That is why the White Cliffs of Dover exist. A huge amount of CO2 has been extracted from the atmosphere, often by Life, to produce limestone and dolostone sequences that are typically sequestered for ten’s of millions of years and are ten’s of thousands of feet thick.
Why do you suppose the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has varied so much over the last 500 million years? It is because it can and does pile up.
Your claim of volcanic emissions being 3% may be valid for terrestrial volcanoes, but leaves out submarine volcanoes, which are probably 1 or 2 orders of magnitude larger. Mauna Loa is a huge volcano. What happened to all the CO2 it emits before the vent broke the surface of the ocean? The Earth is anything but static.
“atmosphere has varied so much over the last 500 million years”
Yes, it has, “over the last 500 million years” . That is very slow compared with what has happened over the last century.
” White Cliffs of Dover “
That is part of the cycle. Volcanoes emit, rock sequesters, erodes or metamorphoses. With limestone, we see the erosion happening in karst formations. The paper behind this article tries to follow the connection between land and marine deposition/erosion.
With CaCO₃ it has been known since forever. CaCO₃ is deposited, uaually in the sea. Raised onto land, CO₂ attacks it to form HCO₃⁻, which mostly ends up in the sea. There itacts as an acid, because it is on the acid side of the HCO₃⁻/CO₃⁻⁻ buffer. So it dissolves some more CaCO₃. These are the kind of linkages this paper is exploring. In thuis particular case, as you suggest, the cycles is closed by sea life, which converts it back to CaCO₃.
Dear Mr Stokes. Please provide some proxy data for the last 500 million years with the resolution of less than a century, or apologise for your utterly baseless conjecture.
Even for you Nick, this logic is silly. The white cliffs of Dover took millions of years to form, therefore biology can’t respond quickly to changes in CO2 levels.
The two have nothing to do with each other.
I didn’t introduce the White Cliffs.
No, you didn’t introduce it, but you did try to gaslight us with the non sequitur about 500 million years. The “White Cliffs of Dover” is not a singular event in the history of Earth; it is just what I thought would be familiar to the many UK readers, and maybe Aussies as well if they are familiar with their ancestor’s home. There are many, many similar stratigraphic units that reflect long periods dominated by carbonate deposition, often suddenly truncated by changing conditions. The deposition can start suddenly, continue for millions of years, and then end suddenly.
The implication of your claim is that, because carbonate deposition continues for ten’s of millions of years, it can’t start and stop quickly, thus the atmospheric CO2 levels have never changed rapidly before. Where is the evidence to support your claim that CO2 hasn’t risen or declined rapidly in the past?
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sivakumaran-Sivaramanan/publication/280548391/figure/fig1/AS:670051329912835@1536764094158/Global-Temperature-and-CO2-levels-over-600-million-years-Source-MacRae-2008.ppm
Take a look at the CO2 graph at the above link and tell us why you think that the current rise is exceptional. Note especially what happened at the end of the Carboniferous and beginning of the Permian periods. Also, remember that time tends to act as a low-pass filter, suppressing and broadening peaks.
Why would we want to quicken the CO2 removal? The benefits are immense as described in a post just above that you ignored.
You ignore the massive benefits. Why? You argue minutia endlessly and ignore the benefits and atmospheric saturation.
You used the word ‘arrhenius’ who was erronious.You are hereby disqualified..
The two man ways that CO2 gets out of the atmosphere is plants and weathering.
Plants respond to enhanced CO2, pretty much immediately.
Weathering is based on the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere. That is also more or less immediate.
As you said above, CO2 removed by plants is back within a few decades, at most.
As I said, weathering can absorb proportional to CO2 in the air. Thta can take it from 3% of our emission to maybe 5%.
We know that CO2 atmospheric concentration goes up steadily year upon year.
We know that any increase in current CO2 concentrations will have minimal effect upon global temperatures – it’s called saturation.
So why does this study matter . . . as long as most of us are realists and pragmatists?!!
RE: Paper on the saturation effect of CO2. .
Title: The Saturation of the Infrared Absorption by Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere
Author: Dieter Schildknect
URL: https://arixiv.org/pdf/2004.00708v1
URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.00708
The saturation of the absorption of out-going long wavelength IR light by CO2 from the earth’s surface occurs when then concentration of CO2 is at 300 ppmv. Adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will not result in an increase in air temperature. In 1920 the concentration of CO2 was 300 ppmv (0.59 g CO2/cu. m.)’
At the MLO in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in dry air is currently 425 ppm v. One cubic meter of this air has mass of 1.29 kg and contains 0.83g of CO2. Note how little CO2 there is in the air. Please keep in mind that 71% of the earth’s surface is covered by H2O.
What this means is that there is no need to reduce the emission of CO2 from the use of fossil fuels and that IPPC and the unscrupulous collaborating scientist have been perpetrating since 1988 the greatest scientific fraud since the Piltdown Man.
Look what this fraud has done to economies of the UK, Germany, Australia for example. Gov. Gavin N. of CA wants to phase out gas and diesel powered cars and light trucks by 2035.
When the EPA rescinds the 2009 CO2 Endangerment Finding, the great fraud will come to an end and many radical environmental NGO’s will go bust. Interesting times are ahead.
“Gov. Gavin N. of CA wants to phase out gas and diesel powered cars and light trucks by 2035.” No, he doesn’t want it – he has decreed it. Even in the face of the US Government removing California’s waiver.
When the EPA rescinds the Endangerment Finding (if it isn’t blocked by some lawsuit), then the lawsuits will begin. It will take years to clear them through the various levels of courts and finally get them off the docket. But is is a good start.
“… the 1.5 or 2.0°C targets of the Paris Agreement …”
Hello Geritt and team! Those numbers are fake and the Agreement is —; well it’s fake too. Earth is doing quite well. She doesn’t need your help.
There is much talk about global warming due to the the greenhouse gas CO2, but there is no talk about winter. Why is that?
If you tick off and mess with Mother Nature, she will whack you with hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones and tornadoes, heat waves and cold snaps, rain, ice, hail, sand and dust storms, lightning and wildfires, and hordes of vicious biting, stinging, and blood-sucking creatures. It pays to be nice to Mother Nature.
Not to mention margarine…
Locusts!!
Amazing how the “Settled Science” doesn’t know (or even acknowledge) about Nature!
It is time to stop worrying about CO2 and concentrate on abundant cheap power.
The reality is that there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on our global climate system. The AGW hypothesis has been falsified by science.
There really is no singular global climate system.
One of many alarmist fabrications. Another is global mean/average temperature.
Consider how damming rivers impacts most of these systems.
Mountains weather into rocks, which weather and tumble into rivers, which further weather, erode, and tumble rocks down to sand sized and much finer particles. There’s significant biological activity involved too. Consider almost all of the rocks in a river valley are not exposed to the running water very much of the time, but instead are buried—sit wetted in muds with biological and non-biological processes etching the surface, reducing the rock particles down to silts and clays.
Dig down on a river edge, and what do you find, but wet sand-gravel-silt-mud and a whole lot of unidentified microscopic biologic process. I suppose there’s some significant non-microscopic biologic process going on too, what with worms, crustaceans, clams and mussels not only digging, but these creatures take in substrate, chemically digesting off the biological part, and expelling the majority of the mineral part, minerals further eroded in the process. We find traces of the mineral components in their hind gut (a.k.a. sand vein).
The mosses on exposed mossy rocks etch the surface, but the vast majority of rocks sit in an acidic anaerobic environment. Rain falls with a pH of 5.7, but some of the desert Southwest dry washes flow at a pH less than 1.