RE: New trees cancel out air pollution cuts now CO2 soars

[Guest guest]

Hi Chris

 

> Well, go figure .. this one was a surprise to me too!

 

This was also reported in the Guardian this week. The most worrying thing

is that the CO2 increase hasn't occurred in El Nino years. I'm waiting to

see a follow up report.

 

Vicki

 

-

 

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianweekly/story/0,,1327452,00.html>

 

 

Climate fear as CO2 soars

 

Paul Brown

Guardian Weekly

 

An unprecedented and unexplained rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

two years running has raised fears that the world may be on the brink of

runaway global -warming.

Scientists are baffled about why the quantity of the main greenhouse gas has

leapt in a two-year period and are concerned that the Earth's natural

systems are no longer able to absorb as much as in the past.

 

The findings were to be discussed this week by the UK government's chief

scientist, Dr David King, at the annual Greenpeace business lecture.

 

Measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere have been continuous for almost 50

years at Mauna Loa Observatory, 3,650m up a mountain in Hawaii, regarded as

far enough away from any carbon dioxide source to be a reliable measuring

point.

 

In recent decades CO2 increased on average by 1.5 parts per million (ppm) a

year because of the amount of oil, coal and gas burnt, but has now jumped to

more than 2ppm in 2002 and 2003.

 

Above or below average rises in CO2 levels in the atmosphere have previously

been explained by natural events.

 

When the Pacific warms up during El Niño - a disruptive weather pattern

caused by weakening trade winds - the amount of carbon dioxide rises

dramatically because warm oceans emit CO2 rather than absorb it.

 

But scientists are puzzled because over the past two years, when the

increases have been 2.08ppm and 2.54ppm respectively, there has been no El

Niño.

 

Charles Keeling, the man who began the observations in 1958 as a young

climate scientist, is now 74 and still working in the field.

 

He said last weeked: " The rise in the annual rate to above two parts per

million for two consecutive years is a real phenomenon.

 

" It is possible that this is merely a reflection of natural events like

-previous peaks in the rate, but it is also possible that it is the

beginning of a natural process unprecedented in the record. "

 

Analysts stress that it is too early to draw any long-term conclusions.

 

But the fear held by some scientists is that the greater than normal rises

in C02 emissions mean that instead of decades to bring global warming under

control we may have only a few years. At worst the figures could be the

first sign of the breakdown in the Earth's natural systems for absorbing the

gas.

 

That would herald the so-called runaway greenhouse effect, where the

planet's soaring temperature becomes impossible to contain. As the icecaps

melt, less sunlight is refected back into space from ice and snow, and bare

rocks begin to absorb more heat. This is already happening.

 

One of the predictions made by climate scientists in the Inter-governmental

Panel on Climate Change is that, as the Earth warms, the absorption of

carbon dioxide by vege-tation - known as carbon sink - is reduced.

 

Dr Keeling said that since there was no sign of a dramatic increase in the

amount of fossil fuels being burnt in 2002 and 2003, the rise " could be a

weakening of the Earth's carbon sinks, associated with the world warming, as

part of a climate change feedback mechanism. It is a cause for concern. "

 

Tom Burke, visiting professor at Imperial College London, who was once an

adviser to the former -Conserva tive environment -minister John Gummer,

warned: " We're watching the clock and the clock is beginning to tick faster,

like it seems to before a bomb goes off. "

 

Peter Cox, head of the Carbon Cycle Group at the Met Office's -Hadley Centre

for Climate Change, said the increase in carbon dioxide was not uniform

across the globe.

 

Measurements of CO2 levels in Australia and at the south pole were slightly

lower, he said, so it looked as though something unusual had occurred in the

northern hemisphere.

 

" My guess is that there were extra forest fires in the northern -hemisphere,

and particularly a very hot summer in Europe, " Dr Cox said. " This led to a

die-back in vegetation and an increase in release of -carbon from the soil,

rather than more -growing plants taking carbon out of the atmosphere, which

is usually the case in summer. "

 

Scientists have dubbed the -two-year CO2 rise the Mauna Loa -anomaly. Dr Cox

said one of its most interesting aspects was that the CO2 rises did not take

place in El Niño years. Previously the only figures that climbed higher than

2ppm were El Niño years - 1973, 1988, 1994 and 1998.

 

The heatwave of last year that is now believed to have claimed at least

30,000 lives across the world was so out of the ordinary that many

-scientists believe it could only have been caused by global warming.

 

But Dr Cox, like other scientists, is concerned that too much might be read

into two years' figures. " Five or six years on the trot would be very

difficult to explain, " he said.

 

Dr Piers Forster, senior research fellow of the University of Reading's

department of meteorology, said: " If this is a rate change, of course it

will be very significant. It will be of -enormous concern, because it will

imply that all our global warming predictions for the next hundred years or

so will have to be redone. "

 

David J Hofmann of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

centre, which also studies CO2, was more cautious.

 

" I don't think an increase of 2ppm for two years in a row is highly

-significant - there are climatic -perturbations that can make this occur, "

he said. " But the absence of a known climatic event does make these years

unusual.

 

" Based on those two years alone I would say it was too soon to say that a

new trend has been established, but it warrants close scrutiny. "