Criteria: HI | Carbon dioxide, Oxygen
“Carbon dioxide?”
Please make it
Warm enough
To live.
My toes and fingers
Ache,
My nose is cold,
My ears are red.
It’s hard to breathe.
My body hurts.
A thin line of ice
Always lines
My eyebrows.
Filling our lungs
Warming the air
Filling the seas
What we can’t see.
“Carbon dioxide?”
I made it
Too hot.
What will happen
To us?
And yes, two words which the past decades have heard about. Two words which are almost synonymous to one another; carbon-dioxide. Two words which are associated with global warming, climate change and air pollution. That must be quite the weight to carry for three atoms.
Carbon dioxide is a colourless, odourless, acidic gas produced by burning carbon and organic compounds. And is the natural byproduct of respiration. This post is about a gas which is lethal when it comes to global warming and ocean acidification, for example. Here, we take a different route: To become aware of the events that took place at a microscopic level but at a terrestrial scale. Spurring the rise in carbon dioxide from a trace gas to becoming an eminent part of the Earth’s atmosphere, soil, and oceans. And, how Earth is a greenhouse.
Dear Patient Reader,
In its natural abundance, carbon dioxide makes up about 0.03% of air’s composition. Though this may seem negligible, it is this very percentage of the chemical compound in our atmosphere that strikes a natural balance within the composition of air. As a trace gas in the Earth’s atmosphere, carbon dioxide has “the ability to affect Earth’s energy balance and change the temperature at the surface and in the atmosphere.”[1] We know this as the greenhouse effect which we’ll come back to.
When did carbon dioxide enter in big time? — Lead author of a research paper[2] about the correlation between the last ice age and a rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, Dr. Jeremy Shakun, explains “what was happening globally and on Antarctica:
A subtle change in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, known as a Milankovitch “wobble”, increased the amount of light reaching northern latitudes and triggered the collapse of the Northern Hemisphere’s great ice sheets.
This produced vast amounts of fresh water that entered the North Atlantic to upset ocean circulation.
Heat at the equator that would normally be distributed northwards backed up, raising temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere.
This initiated further changes to atmospheric and ocean circulation, resulting in the Southern Ocean releasing CO2 from its waters.
This rise in CO2 set in train a global rise in temperature that pulled Earth out of its glaciated state.”
It’s important to know that there are a number of theories surrounding the evolution of the conditions on Earth, such as the rise in carbon dioxide levels. The one above is only one of them.
The last ice age came to an end due to a rise in temperature which had been driven by an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.[3] Now on the path of a new climate history, the planet slowly shifted to warmer conditions which fostered life. A temperature and a gas that were favourable to the growth that was adapting its evolution to the change that was happening. Such synergy. Everything that happened was a domino effect, a chain reaction that nudged one thing into the next. One alarming change to the second alarming change and so on, occurring over millions of years.
The Earth is like a greenhouse — The greenhouse effect warms the Earth’s surface; it “underpins the science of climate change.”[4] Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Destructive in excess, but favourable in moderation. Excess of CO2=Enhanced greenhouse effect, which is contributing to what we call as an “over-warming” of Earth.”[5] Global warming. Climate change is not a middle-schooler, and has been around for millennia. Natural climate change (natural climate cycles) versus anthropogenic climate change: The latter is made up of anthropogenic (man-made) carbon dioxide emissions. Human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) and changes in land use (deforestation and agriculture) which contribute to the enhanced greenhouse effect. To live normally living things require regulated climatic conditions. Otherwise we’ll all become scrambled eggs or maybe preserved glacial mummies. Who knows. If it weren’t for the conditions this blanket of gas (the atmospheric gases) gives us, it wouldn’t be warm enough. CO2 helps in giving us a comfortable and livable average temperature. These are optimal conditions which sprout and encourage life. But if this blanket becomes too heavy and hot for the green house, well we will be put at the stake. A too heavy atmospheric blanket would bring down the walls of a steadfast structure that contains us in temperatures we can live in, water that is drinkable, and air we can breathe. Earth’s greenhouse is our home.
In 2021, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide was measured at 419 ppm.[6] That is an almost 50% jump in CO2 levels from 280 ppm since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.[7] To measure its presence, carbon dioxide is measured by parts per million, or ppm. “In other words, there are 419 carbon dioxide molecules of the gases per million molecules of air.”[8] Again, it may sound negligible but it isn’t. “The last time the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide was this high was over 3 million years ago.”[9] “Accounting for about 76% of global human-caused (anthropogenic) emissions, carbon dioxide sticks around for quite a while. Once CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere, 40% still remains after 100 years, 20% after 1,000 years, and 10% for as long as 10,000 years later.”[10] It’s an adamant gas to say the least.
The dysfunctional greenhouse radiative effect is turning up the dial on the stakes. Affecting surface radiative fluxes and a global climate that may not look and feel the same. As a driver of climate change, increased concentrations of carbon dioxide emissions are in sixth gear and racing down a burning hot track.
Have a good week ahead fellas. Ciao
P.S. There’s an insightful French documentary titled “Réchauffement climatique et santé - 36.9°” (link below, there are no English subtitles though). In sum, it’s about the health impacts of the results of rising global temperatures, such as drought and chronic respiratory diseases.
P.P.S. Next week’s post is titled “Blue Marble”, and is about a form that flows and ebbs; the chemical substance, water.
References
[5] https://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/climate-science-data/climate-science/greenhouse-effect
[7] Ibid.” [6]
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