CO2 Hits Record Levels, Researchers Find.

[camero]

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CLIMATE_RECORD_CO2?SITE=FLPET&SECTION=HOME



CO2 Hits Record Levels, Researchers Find

By CHARLES J. HANLEY
AP Special Correspondent

MAUNA LOA OBSERVATORY, Hawaii (AP) -- Carbon dioxide, the gas largely blamed for global warming, has reached record-high levels in the atmosphere after growing at an accelerated pace in the past year, say scientists monitoring the sky from this 2-mile-high station atop a Hawaiian volcano.

Carbon dioxide, mostly from burning of coal, gasoline and other fossil fuels, traps heat that otherwise would radiate into space. Global temperatures increased by about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) during the 20th century, and international panels of scientists sponsored by world governments have concluded that most of the warming probably was due to greenhouse gases.

Average readings at the 11,141-foot Mauna Loa Observatory, where carbon dioxide density peaks each northern winter, hovered around 379 parts per million on Friday, compared with about 376 a year ago.

That year-to-year increase of about 3 parts per million is considerably higher than the average annual increase of 1.8 parts per million over the past decade, and markedly more accelerated than the 1-part-per-million annual increase recorded a half-century ago, when observations were first made here.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that, if unchecked, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations by 2100 will range from 650 to 970 parts per million. As a result, the panel estimates, average global temperature would probably rise by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius (2.7 and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit) between 1990 and 2100.

The Bush Admin continues to destroy our environment with his policies and negatively affect our health. I remember going through Texas when he was governer and Houston being the most polluted city in the country. Now we can see the effects of his policies on the world environment.

[david_vincent]

1. In other news...

Halliburton has won a no-bid contract to build a new port facility
in Atlanta.

[camero]

2. Just something to think about

as the weather gets freakier and it gets harder to breath.

[Karmadillo]

3. If we need an increased supply of breathing,

the market will provide.

[camero]

4. Obviously

:eyes:

[jus_the_facts]

5. the environment is what needs the MOST focus in world government....

...as WE are also an endangered species...not because we're disappearing....but because of OVERPOPULATION and OVERCONSUMPTION of natural resources....we can't sustain ourselves much less the food chain itself! :cry:

[camero]

6. I don't think it's just overpopulation

We could make a case with birth rates that depopulation is what is really occuring, with the exception of China and India. But a great point about overconsumption.

The increased industrialization and urbanization are two very big players in the environment.

I agree that the environment should be the most important issue of world governments. We most definitely need to take better care of the house we call earth.

[jus_the_facts]

7. Yep...isn't it amazin' that this issue is barely mentioned anymore...

...I know Kerry has a *plan* but gettin' it passed thru a puke controlled congress is another story....I've heard a LOT of talk..yet NEVER enough ACTION....it's been decades now that awareness of these issues have been introduced....yet nothing much has been done to even slow it down much less stop it....the environment is what made me so passionate about the political process in the first place...have you ever read Our Angry Earth by Isaac Asimov and Frederick Pohl? It's a non fiction collaboration and it changed my whole view of the world as I'd understood it and so began my quest to want to DO something about it all throuth politics!!

[camero]

8. I read it. Great book.

I worry that the lakes will have to catch fire again before anything is done. This is the absolute worst president and Congress when it comes to the environment. And when I was driving cross-country I saw the effects first hand. The water in Louisiana. The air in Texas.

I was even in Washington state when it was reported that plutonium had been found in the groundwater. Not a good thing to hear when you're sipping a glass of water with breakfast.

Now I think we can actually link Bush's refusal to implement the Kyoto Agreement with the increased levels of carbon dioxide in the air and that voluntary controls do not work. Only strict enforcement of the law does.

[jus_the_facts]

9. Oh yeah the water down here is horrible......

......glad someone else has read that book around here...I've posted about it several times but no one has ever responded that they'd read it!! It was an eye opener for me...as I'd not really been concerned about what goes on in the world untill around the time that book came out in my early 20's....just hadn't been raised to be conscious of my surroundings and how important it all is in the grand scheme of things!

[camero]

10. Most of us aren't

We usually have to see things first hand for it to have an effect on us. The real propaganda that people fall for is that we have everything is pure in this country. Clean air and water, safe food, etc. Which is the farthest thing from the truth.

Things have definitely slowed to a crawl on improving the environment since Clinton left. Another thing we hear nothing about anymore is the toxic waste cleanup. Hardly a peep.

[Maestro]

11. And this could all lead to another Ice Age

I don't know when society will figure out that this warming is for real and could be catastrophic for many areas of the world. As the Earth warms more fresh water is released into the oceans. There is a conveyer(sp?) belt of warm water in the Atlantic that keeps the east coast relatively mild and on the other side of the Atlantic, Ireland, Scotland and England. If too much fresh water from meltinig ice caps gets into the this belt of warm water the flow of warmer water stops causing much lower temperatures in the northern hemisphere.

The technology already exists to use hydrogen fuel cell cars for example or even natural gas but no company wants to convert because no government will help. What kind of Earth are we leaving our children? Shameful.

And Bush's environmental policy is total I don't know when society will figure out that this warming is for real and could be catastrophic for many areas of the world. As the Earth warms more fresh water is released into the oceans. There is a conveyer(sp?) belt of warm water in the Atlantic that keeps the east coast relatively mild and on the other side of the Atlantic, Ireland, Scotland and England. If too much fresh water gets into the this belt of warm water the flow of warmer water stops causing much lower temperatures in the northern hemisphere.

The technology already exists to use hydrogen fuel cell cars for example or even natural gas but no company wants to convert because no government will help. What kind of Earth are we leaving our children? Shameful.

And Bush's environmental policy is total

[camero]

12. I've heard theories

That the Gulf Stream could stop completely because of what you describe and the scenario is catastrophic. Exactly that would bring on the next Ice Age.

You're damn straight about Bush's environmental policies. I've seen the effects first hand.

[Dogmudgeon]

13. That oceanic "conveyer belt"

It's real.

It's also been diminishing rapidly. And much like the CO2 studies, the speed of its change is picking up, too.

There are a few recent threads in this forum about the impeding ice age. Check them out.

--bkl

[camero]

14. Maybe I'm wrong

But I thought that this "conveyer belt" or part of it is the gulf stream that runs along the east coast and the gulf states.

Thanks, I'll check them out.

[Dogmudgeon]

15. One, Two, Many Conveyer Belts

There are literally hundreds of oceanic currents that act like heat conveyer belts. The technical term for the effect is Thermohaline Circulation or THC.

However, when seawater loses its salinity, the water does not sink as easily, which inhibits the THC. Right now, the various currents in the North Atlantic have been dramatically reduced by just a 1/10th of 1% decrease in salinity.

Warm water can't go north and cold water can't go south, causing a sharper temperature gradient between the equator (hotter) and the poles (colder). This gradient is also seen between the surface and the stratosphere. Currently, while ground temperatures are up, stratospheric temperatures are much lower than have been observed historically. Sometimes, you'll see this quoted as an isolated factoid to bolster the RW argument that "global warming doesn't exist."

Woods Hole has a very good web presence on the topic at http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/ct_abruptclimate.htm which explains the thermohaline condution in some depth.

--bkl

[camero]

16. I was right about the Gulf Stream being a part

That site is a great explanation of the world-wide THC.

Thanks for the info. :)

It says a slowing of the North Atlantic Conveyer could send Europe into a deep freeze. Precipitating the Global Ice Age.