[Closed] Where's all the CO2

It's a low concentration to start with.. 0.04% or so.. Oxygen is somewhere about 20%.. doubling CO2 doesn't make that much difference to oxygen.

Thanks to these.

[img] [/img]

That said because we cut them down the levels have risen.

they keep it in a big biscuit tin, somewhere near Biggleswade

I think you need a lesson on carbon dioxide from leading Republican and climate change denier Michele Bachmann.

"[i]There isn't even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas[/i]"

Atmospheric CO2 is also absorbed by the oceans.

[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle ]More info[/url]

apparently we're pumping shit loads of CO2

C02 has doubled in terms of parts per million so its unlikely to reach levels that mean we can no longer breathe but its enough to alter the radiative forcing effect - that is it stops the suns energy "bouncing" back out in to space and is more like putting an extra blanket or two on the planet to keep it warm.

Ernie that video lost me with it complicated message just one question is it a natural part of earths natural nature?

Luckily, due to the increased participation in cycling as a hobby, since the olympics last year, enough CO2 has now been removed from the atmosphere and stored in peoples bike tyres that global warming has been entirely negated!

HURRAY FOR CYCLING 😉

**none of that may be even slightly true.

I'm not doubting it - I know and am aware of the chemical equations that show when you combust something with oxygen the CO2 is produced. My question is really where is it? Its clearly not in the air we breathe cause we're not all suffocating. If its being absorbed by trees and the oceans then there shouldn't be an issue with global warming due to CO2 absorbing infra red radiation. I'm genuinely interested and some initial googling hasn't really provided a killer answer. If we can measure it there its there, but where? Its not detectable at ground level.

The CO2 in the air we breathe may not be a huge proportion, but it takes much longer for the human body to purge CO2 out of the bloodstream, so it builds up over time if the CO2 levels in the air we breathe is increasing, even by a small amount, we will eventually we will start to suffocate.

euain has already answered your question in the second post of the thread.

If humans were that sensitive to increased levels of carbon dioxide millions would die every day in crowded tube trains, packed public venues, etc.

EDIT : RE :[i]"to purge CO2 out of the bloodstream, so it builds up over time"[/i]

Now I'm no scientist but I'm fairly sure that carbon dioxide doesn't get adsorbed into your bloodstream, it gets exhaled. Carbon monoxide does though, and it can lead to suffocation, do you mean that ?

Is it school holidays again?

Interesting question, wobbliscott, but a quick look at wikipedia suggests that the atmospheric levels of CO2 (typically ~0.04%) are a [i]tiny[/i] fraction of the levels required for toxicity (about 7%). In fact, even if the atmospheric level was increased tenfold it probably wouldn't be enough to make most folk feel dizzy. The article details some of the ways your body can deal with excess CO2 as well, so we're a long way from suffocating ourselves (literally, at least).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#Toxicity

Is it school holidays again?

Can't be my 10 year old knew the answer.

Its clearly not in the air we breathe cause we're not all suffocating.

If its being absorbed by trees and the oceans then there shouldn't be an issue with global warming due to CO2 absorbing infra red radiation.

I'm genuinely interested and some initial googling hasn't really provided a killer answer.

If we can measure it there its there, but where? Its not detectable at ground level.

The CO2 in the air we breathe may not be a huge proportion, but it takes much longer for the human body to purge CO2 out of the bloodstream, so it builds up over time if the CO2 levels in the air we breathe is increasing, even by a small amount, we will eventually we will start to suffocate.

I think this is an excellent illustration of the issue with climate change denial/seances/creationists/ghost believers/gullibles etc.
It is essentially ignorance and fear. The poor chap has no understanding (or a little understanding) of the science and a lot of mistrust in the govt/scientists/large corps.

So instead of ridiculing him (which would be fun) lets try and actually help. I will start..

[b]OP: you are an actual certifiable moron, try not to think about these things and let the clever people run the the planet yeah?[/b]

Ernie - CO2 does indeed get absorbed into our blood - that's how it gets from where it's made (in the tissues of our body where we do respiration) to the lungs where we breath it out. The haemoglobin in our blood is really clever at picking up oxygen in our lungs, dumping it in our tissues and picking up the CO2 made. The issue with carbon monoxide is that it binds to haemoglobin very strongly, preventing either CO2 or O2 from binding. Which is bad news, obviously.

I've load in the loft that I'm keeping safe for Ms Bachmann. She's going in there to demonstrate how "natural" and "safe" a high concentration of CO2 is to breathe. Acidosis woman!

Ernie - CO2 does indeed get absorbed into our blood - that's how it gets from where it's made (in the tissues of our body where we do respiration) to the lungs where we breath it out.

Yes, I meant atmospheric carbon dioxide obviously. Does carbon dioxide get absorbed through the lungs into your body ? I didn't think it did, which why I said that "it gets exhaled".

Does carbon dioxide get absorbed through the lungs into your body ?

Even if it did, it would be massively outcompeted by 500-fold excess of O2 molecules trying to bind with the haemoglobin.

Either way, the OP has demonstrated himself to require a serious amount of education in this regard before anyone can expect to enter a sensible conversation on the topic with him.

Even if it did, it would be massively outcompeted by 500-fold excess of O2 molecules trying to bind with the haemoglobin.

Although most of the CO2 to be eliminated is transported in the red blood cells a relatively small proportion binds to the haemoglobin. In any case, unlike CO it doesn't bind to the same place as oxygen so competition doesn't come into it.

[b]Ernie[/b], you're right my apologies. My explanation up there is a bit incomplete in that it leaves out the fact that most of the CO2 in our blood is dissolved in the form of a carbonic acid / bicarbonate buffer. There's some clever stuff to do with partial gas pressures and pH that determine how much CO2 is in the blood but my recollection of the details of that are shakey. Basically though, we CAN absorb CO2 into the blood in our lungs but the concentration of CO2 would have to be [i]really[/i] high for that to happen.

[b]Zokes[/b], your dismissal of the OP seems unnecessarily aggressive. The process of education usually involves asking questions that an expert might consider silly. It strikes me that the OP's intention was to fill some gaps in his knowledge, which I hope he has done.

Zokes, your dismissal of the OP seems unnecessarily aggressive. The process of education usually involves asking questions that an expert might consider silly. It strikes me that the OP's intention was to fill some gaps in his knowledge, which I hope he has done.

I agree that the OP has been dismissed in an unnecessarily aggressive manner on this thread, but the OP himself has a track record of rather "robust" posting.

And I think it is rather naive to think that [i]"the OP's intention was to fill some gaps in his knowledge"[/i], he has a history of being an aggressive climate change denier. And anyway, he's asked this question before :

wobbliscott - Member

One question though - CO2 is a powerful gas and you only need a small increase in CO2 in the air we breathe before the effects of asphyxiation take hold. Also CO2 is heavier than air - there are loads of mass dinosaur fossil sites near volcanic areas where CO2 pumped out has suffocated them, so if we're pumping all this CO2 into the atmosphere then why is it not sinking to ground level and suffocating us all??
Posted 3 weeks ago

Does carbon dioxide get absorbed through the lungs into your body ? I didn't think it did, which why I said that "it gets exhaled"

(and a couple of small-scale "extinction events" around african lakes believed due to CO2 release)

Thanks Toys but if read my OP you will not detect any level of scepticism in my question - it is simply a genuine question and I expected that most people would have taken it on face value. You're clearly much much cleverer than me, but I wonder why didn't you answer the question and instead resorted to dissing someone you don't know. What a nice person you are, not to mention arrogant and conceited. On the contrary - I think it is you who is the "poor chap'. To go through life being so disappointed that you're surrounded by such buffoons that know so little and ask all these simple questions you can't be bothered to answer (or can't?).

Anyway, I thought this was a logical question (clearly not for some) that I struggled to find an answer for. If the answers that the levels of CO2 is too low to be an issue then fair enough - i'm satisfied with that as an answer.

And on the absorption thing - CO2 is absorbed into the blood just as Oxygen is (just as Carbon Monoxide), and it takes the place of oxygen in our blood thus reducing the level of Oxygen in it. It is more readily absorbed, so displaces more Oxygen, and takes longer for our bodies to purge - it serves no function so hangs around in our blood, before it is 'breathed out' via the lungs.

It strikes me that the OP's intention was to fill some gaps in his knowledge, which I hope he has done.

He's tried to fill these gaps before (as noted by Ernie). As his OP demonstrates, he's got some way to go yet...

EDIT: Crossed post with the OP. I had assumed this thread was a prelude to another tedious climate skeptic love-in, given the OP's previous. I'll take it at face value that he has actually learned something today then.

By the way, its nice to be stereotyped as a 'denier' and as such my opinions don't seem to matter. Its more worrying for me that good open discussion is so quickly quashed in our society. I'm neither a denier or a 'believer' and do have questions about climate change as its a subject that interests me and is relevant to the industry I work in so would love to know the facts. The most worrying aspect here is that just by asking questions you just seem to be swept aside by all those who are fully convinced - but they seem to struggle or not want to explain why they are so convinced - i'm genuinely interested. Afterall this is science and not religion and science has been known to get it wrong sometimes.

Anyway thanks for the sensible posts, i've genuinely learned something.

Its more worrying for me that good open discussion is so quickly quashed in our society

In fairness OP, you asked the question ernie quoted 3 weeks ago. zokes was the first to reply to explain diffusion which you seem to have accepted. I then replied with:

Given the concentrations needed to asphyxiate us all, we'd have a lot to be worrying about before it gets to that level anyway.

I think we're approaching 400ppm at the moment and we'd need to be at 10,000 ppm just for us all to be feeling a bit drowsy. So, it might be best to get back to worrying about the other effects of CO2 concentration increase and forget about the risk of asphyxiation for now.

I is disappoint that you paid so little attention.* 🙁

*I ought to be used to it by now though 🙂

There'd have to be a BIG increase in atmospheric CO2 to achieve this but, for example, it was considered as an option for the badger cull (pumping it into burrows)

All I can find is references to carbon monoxide being used for badger culling, not carbon dioxide. Obviously if you pump any gas other than oxygen, even nitrogen, you will eventually cause death due to oxygen displacement.

Actually if you pumped pure oxygen you risk killing them, oxygen can be quite lethal - I wonder what Michele Bachmann would make of that ?

its nice to be stereotyped as a 'denier' and as such my opinions don't seem to matter.

On a topic you clearly know very little about, no, I'm sorry, they don't count for much. It's not an open discussion, there is no room for 'balance', as about 99% of climate scientists agree that global warming is real, and is caused by humans.

Media tries to give it balance, finding (to the lay-person) two equally credible scientists, one on either side of the fence. But really, they should have 99 scientists on the 'for' side, and 1 on the 'against' side, as that would be more reflective of the current opinion of the science.

Big industry lobbies governments and the media lap it up, running scare stories about how 'green' laws will impact on our way of life (and their advertisers' and shareholders' back pockets). Add a few more interviews with mis-placed balance, and all of a sudden, we're at the stage where everyone thinks it's just one big con.

So sorry for being 'robust' in putting my thoughts across, but really, the argument that global warming has nothing to do with humans burning fossil fuels holds about as much water as a flat earth.

I should add, I'm not a believer. I save belief for the religious amongst us. I accept the scientific recommendations of the world's experts on the topic.

[url= http://www.bovinetb.info/docs/Fumigation-as-a-badger-culling-technique.pdf ]Here you go Ernie, P7[/url]

I'm neither a denier or a 'believer'

Well you have a funny way of expressing your neutrality on the subject :

wobbliscott - Member

The problem is that there is a whole global industry employing hundreds of thousands of people based upon the myth of man-made global warming.

Posted 2 months ago

Using the word "myth" suggests a certain amount of denial.

Its nice to be stereotyped as a 'denier' and as such my opinions don't seem to matter.

well they are quite illinformed so they dont matter as much as those who comprehend the subject.

Its more worrying for me that good open discussion is so quickly quashed in our society.

I'm neither a denier or a 'believer' and do have questions about climate change as its a subject that interests me and is relevant to the industry I work in so would love to know the facts.

Man made C02 is causing climate change by warming the atmosphere.
HTH

The most worrying aspect here is that just by asking questions you just seem to be swept aside by all those who are fully convinced

- but they seem to struggle or not want to explain why they are so convinced

Afterall this is science and not religion and science has been known to get it wrong sometimes.

Anyway thanks for the sensible posts, i've genuinely learned something

And on the absorption thing - CO2 is absorbed into the blood just as Oxygen is (just as Carbon Monoxide), and it takes the place of oxygen in our blood thus reducing the level of Oxygen in it. It is more readily absorbed, so displaces more Oxygen, and takes longer for our bodies to purge - it serves no function so hangs around in our blood, before it is 'breathed out' via the lungs.

No, it's carried by the blood by quite different mechanisms from the way Oxygen and CO is transported, it doesn't displace Oxygen or reduce Oxygen levels, and is eliminated quite rapidly from the bloodstream. It serves several functions, probably the most important of which is influencing breathing rate.

Other than that you're spot-on.

😆

As a side comment, a while ago I did some simple maths on how much CO2 would be generated from a full tank in my little Yaris and was quite surprised.

On the assumptions that the fuel was 100% octane and that it burned completely to give carbon dioxide and water it was over 100kg per 45 litre tank.

Makes you think, when you consider how many cars are on the road, for a start, and then the power stations etc.

If I could be bothered I'd try to write something clever about The Bohr effect but I cant be bothered and I'm not very clever anyway.

It's all in here

[img] ?w=430&h=430&a=7[/img]

The op's question was reasonable, just that this

Also my understanding is that you don't need the percentage of Co2 to rise alot in the air we breathe before we would start suffering the effects of asphyxiation

... is not true.

Interestingly though, current CO2 levels are only just above starvation levels for plants. They did a lot of their evolving when levels were much higher. If you feed some CO2 into your polytunnels or greenhouses the plants grow like mad.

That's why trees were so big in the Carboniferous period were so huge, lots of CO2 in the air. As the plants ate it all up and buried it in the ground in coal seams, levels dropped.

If anyone doubts the danger of CO2, try breathing a mixture of air & CO2, the reflex to get away from it'll knock you backwards.

It's heavier than air & displaces it in some circumstances. A few years ago there was a big release from a volcanic lake vent in Africa (Cameroon?) which killed thousands.

EDIT: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/21/newsid_3380000/3380803.stm

Careful how you open that can of coke. Only do it in a well ventilated area. And ffs don't drink it until it's flat 😉

If anyone doubts the danger of CO2, try breathing a mixture of air & CO2, the reflex to get away from it'll knock you backwards.

I'm doing it now.

All I can find is references to carbon monoxide being used for badger culling, not carbon dioxide. Obviously if you pump any gas other than oxygen, even nitrogen, you will eventually cause death due to oxygen displacement.

I can see certain advantages to using CO2: it's heavier than air (apart from the CO2 bit of it, of course 🙂 ) which means it'll sink into the sett rather than floating out; it's also basically harmless outdoors, unlike carbon monoxide... of course, you'll be suffocating the badgers, which is hardly the most humane way to cull them.

Although you can breath air with oxygen removed without a care in the world as long as CO2 doesnt build up. But only for a short time.

I'd like to hear more about the dinosaur mass deaths resulting from volcanic CO2, if anyone knows details.

And do L remember right: CO2 dissolves in the blood, bicarb or whatever, CO borks the haemoglobin?

Just imagine if all the guff spouted on STW was actually spoken! The CO2 footprint would be enough to doom us all thrice over.

surprised no one has posted the Mauna Kea graph yet showing actual real atmospheric CO2 measurements - the annual variation is caused by differnece between winter and summer co2 emissions by the biosphere in (most plant Biomass is in the northern hemisphere - much less in the southern)

[img] [/img]

Looking further back over the last 300 years or so we have this as a record of atmospheric CO2 obtained by measuring CO2 concentrations in bubbles frozen in Ice at the polar regions - each year a layer of fresh snow traps air bubbles which acts as a record of the atmospheric CO2 for that year - The mauna kea direct measurements are the thicker black lines at the right hand of the graph.

[img] [/img]

Looking back over the period of the last few ice ages we can use the Ice core records to show the change in CO2 levels in the atmosphere - again by looking at bubbles trapped in ice. -

[img] [/img]

generally Ice ages tend to see CO2 levels of 200ppm, and warm bits between ice ages about 300ppm. Effectively the current atmosphere is nearly 400ppm the difference between the normal 300ppm and current 400ppm is due to human fssil fuel burning - although another big slug of CO2 has also found it's way into the oceans as well in recent years - ( a tiny amount compared with the size and chemical composition of the oceans, but enough to shift the alkalinity slightly)

Bottom line is these shifts in CO2 levels in the atmosphere are nowhere near enough to cause toxicity problems to humans, but are enough to cause big changes in the amount of solar radiation the earths atmosphere traps, and hence the earths temperature.

slowoldgit - Member
I'd like to hear more about the dinosaur mass deaths resulting from volcanic CO2, if anyone knows details.

Do you mean global extinction events caused by CO2 poisoning (as far as I am aware there are none - and if CO2 levels ever got high enough to cause that then the rapid climate shift would already have caused ecosystem collapse and there would be very little left alive for the co2 to poison) or just local killings caused by eg volcanic lake outgassing. Difficult to envisage a classic volcano causing mass deaths by CO2 directly, as the rest of the volcanic eruption type event would almost certainly be more important.

Or do you mean the role that volcanic SO2 played in the Permian mass extinction - not dinosaurs per se - but probably the biggest Mass extiction event so far.

but enough to shift the alkalinity slightly

That's what I find particularly scarey and depressing, the thought of the widespread destruction of the natural equilibrium which occurs in the oceans, and the devastating consequences it will have to, for example, coral reefs and their inhabitants.

****ing up the atmosphere is tragic enough but ****ing up the oceans which are so finely tuned without any slack, is too depressing to even think about imo.

On a general note terms like "co2 levels don't need to rise a lot" is subjective and people working in one branch of science may have very different ideas of what "a lot" is. In this case physiologists and earth scientists, just be careful when using the same language in different fields.

The classic case of this subjective language is geologists using the word "recent" - depending on what sort of geologist you are talking to it could mean anytime in the last 2 Billion years, although an Archeologist would probaly be thinking in terms of 100s of years.

(although archeology isn't proper science 😉 )

Thanks gwaelod.

No, it was this bit...

[i]Also CO2 is heavier than air - there are loads of mass dinosaur fossil sites near volcanic areas where CO2 pumped out has suffocated them,[/i]

... that caught my attention, can't see how I missed it when it was first published. Not really my subject, but something that significant, etc.

So if the CO2 that's dissolving in the oceans causes anoxic conditions in the deep oceans, we're stuffed. Not yet obviously, but we'll get to see an Ocean Anoxic Event for real.

I don't think it's lack of oxygen that will be the catastrophe, long before that the pH will have crashed. The oceans just won't be able to cope with that. At least life within the oceans won't.

No, it was this bit...

Also CO2 is heavier than air - there are loads of mass dinosaur fossil sites near volcanic areas where CO2 pumped out has suffocated them,

... that caught my attention, can't see how I missed it when it was first published. Not really my subject, but something that significant, etc.

I suppose there's no reason why there couldn't be any co2 lagerstatten thoretically caused by Lake outgassing - much like the event at Lake Nyos a few years ago that killed 1700 people

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos

very specific meteorological and geographical conditions acted to prevent the mixing and dispersion of the co2 - stable atmosphere and co2 trapped in a bowl shaped depression. In geological terms small scale, although obviously devasting for those involved.

Although it killed all those people it wasn't enough to register on the Mauna Kea CO2 measurements though - so a relatively big event locally it was insignificant globally.

I doubt if there are that many lagerstatten where co2 poisioning has been the primary kill mechanism though.

Disclaimer...I'm not a paleontologist...one may be along in a bit and if there is one..they'll know far more about it than me.

As a side comment, a while ago I did some simple maths on how much CO2 would be generated from a full tank in my little Yaris and was quite surprised.

On the assumptions that the fuel was 100% octane and that it burned completely to give carbon dioxide and water it was over 100kg per 45 litre tank.

Makes you think, when you consider how many cars are on the road, for a start, and then the power stations etc.

We'll in round numbers I think emissions per person in European countries are about 10 metric tonnes, so 10,000 kg or 100 tanks using your calculations. Does that make sense?0

oxygen levels in prehistory are fascinating...increasing oxygen levels allow insects to grow larger - their size is controlled by the rate at which oxygen can diffuse through their body. as oxygen levels in the atmosphere cross certain thresholds though biomass will burn uncontrollably.

during carboniferous period oxygen levels were 30% or so of the atmosphere - insects were mahoosive

bigger than cars they were (although I'm not a paleontologist)

DrJ - I guess so. I try not to drive everywhere as I have bikes. I have a small-sized Yaris. For my car this would mean filling twice a week which I don't do - once every three or four weeks for me. But it is a 998cc car. For a larger car it would depend on fuel efficiency.

And there are basic assumptions in my calculations: 100% conversion, density of octane at 0.703g/ml and assumption of 100% octane fuel. Burning is rarely 100% efficient and you'll end up with benzenes etc.

Maths is easy though based upon number of moles of octane per litre multiplied by eight to give number of moles of carbon dioxide multiplied by weight of CO2.

- although another big slug of CO2 has also found it's way into the oceans as well in recent years - ( a tiny amount compared with the size and chemical composition of the oceans, but enough to shift the alkalinity slightly)

Can someone brainer than I do some maths using Henry's law to figure out what the PPM of CO2 in the atmosphere would have to be to actual shift sea water from being alkaline to neutral and then to acid? If I remember my GCSE & AS levels properly it would have to be far more than the current 400ppm given the CO2 that enters the ocean will always maintain proportion with the atmosphere.

Not disagreeing that a very small change in ocean PH won't cause problems for coral reefs and shell fish etc. which is very frightening (whole food chains could collapse - if we haven't eaten it all by then) but I know the mass media stories about acidic oceans can't be true i.e. the oceans will not turn acidic - to get from a PH of 8.10 to less than 7 (neutral) would be mental.

This is a good graph to start off with though.

[img] [/img]

I don't know Henry's Law but I do know that it's a lot more complex than the amount of carbon dioxide which gets dissolved. The pH of seawater is heavily effected by the natural buffering effect of dissolved salts, it's not simply the effect of the presence of carbon dioxide.

EDIT : Not just dissolved salts but also undissolved stuff. For example if seawater became more acidic then the White Cliffs of Dover would start to dissolve/dissolve more rapidly, this would to an extent have a buffering effect.

The problem is that the oceans are very stable environments compared to other areas of the world, the life that lives within them have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years in this relatively stable environment and simply can't make the adjustments that slight change might bring.