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Expert: Carbon Dioxide Emissions Could Last Millenniums
WASHINGTON - Until now, most discussion of climate change has been about what scientific evidence shows is likely to happen between now and 2100. However, scientific research shows that the carbon dioxide gas released from burning fossil fuels lasts in the atmosphere much longer than mere decades.
Satellite image shows a layer of haze caused by pollution over east-central China. A US satellite that was meant to monitor global carbon dioxide emissions has plummeted into the ocean near Antarctica after failing to reach orbit.
(AFP/NASA/Ho) David Archer, a leading climate researcher who teaches at the University of Chicago, has written a new book that looks at carbon dioxide's "long tail" and what it means for changes on Earth in the future.
If the world continues its heavy use of coal over the next couple of hundred years until it's essentially used up, it would take several centuries more for the oceans to absorb about three-quarters of the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere. In those centuries, there would be a "climate storm" that Archer says would be significantly worse than the forecast from now to 2100.
The remaining carbon dioxide - the long tail - would stay in the atmosphere for thousands of years, leaving a warmer climate. About 10 percent of it would still be in the atmosphere in 100,000 years, Archer wrote in "The Long Thaw: How Humans Are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth's Climate."
"Ultimately, the amount of fossil fuel available could be enough to raise the atmospheric CO2 concentration higher than it has been in millions of years," Archer wrote.
Because of the long life of CO2 from fossil fuels, the climate impacts would last for many thousands of years. Ice sheets would melt, raising seas high enough to swamp 10 percent or more of the world's agricultural land. Other climate impacts could include uncomfortable heat and drier continental interiors, Archer tells his readers. "In the long run, it could be a steep price to pay for a century or so of fossil fuel energy."
Archer studies the carbon cycle of Earth as it interacts with global climate. His slim book is a clear explanation of carbon dioxide and climate change for nonscientists. It also explains how the climate has changed in the distant past and looks ahead to the deep future.
His work has been a part of what John Holdren, whom President Obama named as his science adviser, has called the "tremendous effort" among scientists to reach a "center of gravity" in the understanding of climate change. The results of that work are available in the reports of the National Academy of Sciences and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The conclusion, as Holdren summed it up at his confirmation hearing recently: "Climate change is real, it's accelerating, it is caused in substantial part by human activity, it is dangerous and it is getting more so."
Like Holdren and other climate experts, Archer concludes that there's still time to cut fossil fuel emissions enough to avoid disaster.
"The question may come down to ethics, rather than economics," Archer wrote, much as the issue of slavery did more than a century ago. "Ultimately it didn't matter whether it was economically beneficial or costly to give up. It was simply wrong."
Some questions and answers with David Archer:
Q: You write that the climate effects of fossil fuel burning will last longer than nuclear waste. Most discussions of climate change focus on this century. Why did you look farther out?
A: Everyone knows that nuclear waste lasts a long time, and it seems to make a difference to them. It makes a difference to me the longevity of global warming, too.
Q: Some people, though, don't believe it's a problem.
A: There are people who will "believe" anything they want to; the question is whether anyone has a scientifically credible justification for that belief. It was predicted over a century ago that rising CO2 concentrations in the air would warm the planet. Now it seems to be doing just that, just as predicted. If anyone can explain why things should not work in this way, then I'd be interested to hear, but so far there are just no completing ideas, just beliefs stemming from whatever source, and an active campaign at disinformation sponsored by the fossil fuel industry.
Q: What difference does the long view make?
A: The book makes the point that global warming from CO2 emissions will last for thousands of years into the future. To me that changes the picture, especially when thinking about the economics of climate change or the possibility of "engineering" the planet cooler by putting haze in the stratosphere or something like that. It also means that the eventual sea level rise from releasing CO2 could be a hundred times greater than the forecast for the year 2100.
Q: Is Earth doomed to an ice-free state, mass extinctions and rising seas?
A: No, the damage has not yet been done. We could stop releasing CO2. Technologically that is not so hard.
27 Comments so far
Show All"We could stop releasing CO2. Technologically that is not so hard."
But it's very hard economically as CO2 emission amounts are directly tied to economic output under our current economic paradigm. In answer to the last question, I would say damage has already been done, but we don't know to what extent yet; and of course, we continue to add CO2, which will make it almost impossible to access the damage done till now. Fortunately, there's not as much coal left as most think; US reserves are now halved, and other studies have come to similar conclusions for the whole planet.
Millennia
actually, both spellings are correct.
I vote for Millenia. And data are plural.
AND its time to start huge conservation programs, build real mass transit US-wide, and make a real commitment to put in place proper policies to end the population explosion. Yup, Yesterday.
A lot of understanding how dire the problem is starts with thinking in geologically long time scales. Unfortunately our schools seem to do a terrible job at providing a education in these matters, leading a population that just sort of draws a blank when they must consider spans of time longer than a hundred years or so.
Ultimately, humanity itself is going to go down as the cause of third great global mass extinction event. Too bad that once we have wiped ourselves out, the chance of abstract-thinking, language-using beings like us evolving again, to record our existence from the fossil record and teach their children about it, will be nil for the remaining 600 to 800 million years that our planet remains suitable for complex life.
---USAn---
The dinosaurs lasted over a hundred million years with a brain the size of a walnut.
They'd probably still be the dominant specie today if not for a well-aimed asteroid.
Humans, with their big brains will barely make it one million years.
And we're the cause of own own disappearance.
On top of that...we were given FAIR WARNING!
Whoever follows us will be the rightly inheriter of the throne.
I'm sure they'll do a damn better job than we did.
Obama is establishing carbon caps.
I wonder what color they will be? Will they be in the stores by summer?
Walk in peace.
I''ve already got one. The logo on it says "I'm with stupid."
This is statistical fear mongering. A given random molecule of CO2 may linger for centuries or even a millenium, just like some new CO2 emissions may be absorbed randomly in seconds (eg CO2 from car exhaust being absorbed by a plant or tree on the road). But it's the total CO2 amount in the atmosphere, not how old a sub-set of the CO2 is. If we were to remove all emissions, the atmosphere would be rapidly depleted of CO2.
Geologists tell us that the half-life of CO2 in the atmosphere is on the order of five to ten years. Based on carbon fluxes there is 760 GT of CO2 in the atmosphere, and 210 GT is absorbed by sinks, so simple math shows the idea of most of the carbon lingering in the atmosphere for a millenium or more is nonsense.
Revelle and Seuss estimated a 7 to 10-year half-time of CO2 in the atmosphere. There were 36 estimates of the atmospheric CO2 half-time based upon experimental measurements (not models) published between 1957 and 1992. These range between 2 and 25 years, with a mean of 7.5, a median of 7.6, and an upper range average of about 10. Of the 36 values, 33 are 10 years or less. More recently I read a credible study by Dietze which came up with 55 years which is on the high side. So there is little consensus.
There is no experimental evidence to support computer model estimates of centuries or millenium CO2 atmospheric "lifetime". The banks used computer models that said all was well until it was not. In modelling, garbage in garbage out rules, the data is not very good for climate models since data before instrumental measurements were made have wild uncertainties.
Mans CO2 emissions are 4% of the total emissions. Man has just as much right to release CO2 as the rest of nature, which we are a part. Instead of arguing about CO2 from man causing warming, maybe they should spend more time preparing for floods, storms and drought, and even an ice age since nobody really knows what the climate will be in the future, warmer or cooler, just that it will change as it has been doing for billions of years, with or without man.
Hi MiMsy...
I see the local oil industry appologist/troll is making their usual inane comments to earn their pay.
Walk in peace.
My God! You have deviated from the approved storyline. Of course your arguments are correct and your statistics are correct, even your conclusion is more reasonable than the one in this article.....but lets not dwell on reality.
Why is it so hard to address the fact that lowering emissions would be a good thing without all this "chicken little" storyline.
miniwood.
You lot can stuff yourself if you want to.
I care more about my Grand Children who are going to try and live through the mess you idiots are creating
Well, well...
The "population growth is the root of all evil" nuts don't seem to have much in the politenes department.
Swinging singles and DINK's are the mose proflagrate greenhouse emitters of all.
---USAn---
Ridicule will get you everywhere. Ask Rush.
Folks,
Regardless of the CO2 longevity issue, we should all be bothered by the basic equation:3O2+2CH4->4H20+2CO2
I.E. OXYGEN +METHANE (or any other hydrocarbon) produces CARBON DIOXIDE + WATER. Notice the numbers before the molecule symbols. You steal three molecules of oxygen from our air and burn it with two molecules of methane and you get less available oxygen. But the kicker is for every 2 molecules of CO2, you have just added FOUR molecules of brand new WATER. The water wasn't there before. Our world has a balance. We are screwing it up. More water in the atmosphere (water vapor is a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2) means even more heat trapped and more Fungi attacking plants and animals. We really need to go electric and shit can the internal combustion poison machines, like yesterday.
Well said, except that if every private auto were electric tomorrow, the problem would still be there. The auto is a throwaway commodity that promotes sprawl. We should move to town, educate all children, and give the suburbs to the organic farmers.
http://freepublictransit.org
right
AGG - Where do you get the electricity to store in the battery of the electric car, hmmm? It has to come from SOMEWHERE...like a powerplant that is one of four basic types: coal, nuke, hydroelectric dam, of natural gas. The only one that is not totally hydrocarbon dependant is the hydro dam, and that requires oil to build and maintain.
oops.
There are NO major large scale solar power plants. And windfarms have the drawback of fluctuation in supply that must be met by backup systems, usually one of the other four. Not to mention that to build both solar and windfarms requires the expendature of large amounts of, you guessed it...OIL!
Recent relases by oil industry analysts confirm that OPEC production peaked in 2006, and the 12 major non-OPEC producers peaked in 2004.
Walk in peace.
"Where do you get the electricity to store in the battery of the electric car"
That seems to be the forgotten piece of this electric car fallacy. They also cost more and every one, including hybrids is sold at a loss.
Now the dried dung power source could be a revolution in non fossil fuel, the Mongols built an empire using it. (lol)
Who was it that said 'The past is the future'?
Walk in peace.
AGG, does this equation bother you?
C6H12O6 + 6O2 -> 6CO2 + 6H2O.
Think on this for a moment (you especially MiMsy...):
It took thousands, and tens of thousands of years for nature to sequester all this carbon in the form of coal and petrochemicals.
Why should it take any less time to do so again?
Walk in peace.
The atmospheric lifetime for CO2 in the atmosphere is between 50 and 200 years. The IPCC has estimated that in order to keep CO2 levels at their current ppm, global emissions would have to be reduced by 60%.
With fewer and smaller carbon dioxide sinks, and the likely release of methane from sources within Siberia, there might possibly be unforeseen catastrophic events in the near future.
There are no geologists who state that CO2 dissipates in five to ten years.
-In responce to the title of this piece-
It's *millenia*, not *milleniums*...picky, I know, but if you are going to write for the public, at least *try* to use the correct terminology...Walk in peace.
Check your dictionary. "Millenniums" is fine.