Thursday, December 31, 2009

No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction in Past 160 Years, New Research Finds

And it was published in one of Al Gore's favourite scientific journals too. I wonder if this too counts as one of those 'inconvenient' papers David Karoly says he never sees in the scientific literature?

ScienceDaily (Dec. 31, 2009) — Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.

However, some studies have suggested that the ability of oceans and plants to absorb carbon dioxide recently may have begun to decline and that the airborne fraction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions is therefore beginning to increase.

Many climate models also assume that the airborne fraction will increase. Because understanding of the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide is important for predicting future climate change, it is essential to have accurate knowledge of whether that fraction is changing or will change as emissions increase.

To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data.

In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.

The research is published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Inconvenient or what?!

Via Greenie Watch, which comments "We actually live in a low carbon era so this is no surprise. Potential capacity for carbon absorption is large."

Posted via email from Garth's posterous

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Please give the original reference for further research. Thanks.