Carbon output goes off the chart

[RedEarth]

Source: Reuters

TWO KEY greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere rose sharply last year, and carbon dioxide levels this year are showing an alarming increase, the US Government has reported.

In its annual index of greenhouse gas emissions, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found atmospheric carbon dioxide, the primary driver of global climate change, rose 0.6 per cent, or 19 billion tonnes, last year.

The amount of methane rose 0.5 per cent, or 27 million tonnes, after nearly 10 years of little or no change, according to preliminary figures from scientists at the administration's Earth System Research Laboratory in Colorado released on Wednesday.

Methane's greenhouse effect is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide's, but there is far less of it in the atmosphere. Overall, methane has about half the climatic impact of carbon dioxide.



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/carbon-output-goes-off-the-chart/2008/04/24/1208743154045.html

[Speck Tater]

1. "Off the chart?" No problem. Just get a bigger chart.

:sarcasm:

[gauguin57]

2. If Beck, Limbaugh, Savage, Hannity, O'Reilly would close their mouths, gases would DROP sharply!!

Such a simple cure for global warming.

[ozymandius]

7. They and their minions just need to stop farting from all orifices.

Wisdom is never gained from a running mouth.

[bbinacan]

3. No problem

just buy carbon offsets from Al Gore's company.

[Bandit]

8. I bet you are one of those that really believes there is no problem.

Man never stepped on the moon and Bush* is a genius..Oh and Evolution is "just a theory"....

[bbinacan]

15. Youe are incorrect. n/t

[IntravenousDemilo]

4. Believe it or not, a lot of the CO2 is coming from trees in Canada.

No, I'm not going all Reagan or something with "trees cause more pollution than cars". What's been happening is that because of climate change, the British Columbia interior hasn't lately had the harsh winters it needs to kill off pine beetles, which have since flourished and spread over an area twice the size of Maine, killing all the trees.

The trees are now rotting and sending up tonnes and tonnes of greenhouse gases. They have to be cleared out and pulped, because the wood is useless for building with.

[NickB79]

6. True. Positive feedback cycles are beginning to kick in

Can anyone say "snowballing"?

[crispini]

11. Oooo. That's bad. nt

[RedEarth]

13. The journal Nature just published an article dealing with just what you mentioned.....

The bark beetle is devastating North American trees (see “Climate-Driven Pest Devours N. American Forests“).

Global warming has created a perfect climate for these beetles — Milder winters since 1994 have reduced the winter death rate of beetle larvae in Wyoming from 80% per year to under 10%, and hotter, drier summers have made trees weaker, less able to fight off beetles.

New reseach published in the journal Nature, “Mountain pine beetle and forest carbon feedback to climate change,” (subs. req’d, abstract reprinted below), quantifies the current and future impact just from the beetle’s warming-driven devastation in British Columbia:

… the cumulative impact of the beetle outbreak in the affected region during 2000–2020 will be 270 megatonnes (Mt) carbon (or 36 g carbon m-2 yr-1 on average over 374,000 km2 of forest). This impact converted the forest from a small net carbon sink to a large net carbon source.

No wonder the carbon sinks are saturating faster than we thought (see here) — unmodeled impacts of climate change are destroying them:

Insect outbreaks such as this represent an important mechanism by which climate change may undermine the ability of northern forests to take up and store atmospheric carbon, and such impacts should be accounted for in large-scale modelling analyses.

http://climateprogress.org/2008/04/25/nature-on-stunning-new-climate-feedback-beetle-tree-kill-releases-more-carbon-than-fires/#more-2728

[Fovea]

5. Melting permafrost

and wait till we start trying to mine methane hydrides from the deep ocean...

[defendandprotect]

9. The oil industry ran the propaganda vs Global Warming and bought the legislators . ..

put Bush/Cheney in office ---

We need to nationalize oil --- and get electric cars on our roads ---

[il_lilac]

10. k&r

to the greatest page.

[Robbien]

12. Jeb Bush: Climate Change Proponents are religious zealots

Chill out on climate change, Jeb Bush says.

President Bush's little brother said yesterday that those who advocate action to limit climate change are acting out of something like religious zeal. "I don't think our policies should be based on emotion; they should be based on sound science," The Associated Press quoted him as saying.

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/greenblog/2008/04/jeb_bush_climate_change_propon.html?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed7

Just another GOPer charging their opponent with their own sins. No one is a bigger religious zealot than a Bush. Climate scientists are among the last groups one would consider to be religious zealots.

[xyouth]

14. The planet will take care of us.

Beetles are a great source of protein.

[skoalyman]

16. dang chaney musta farted again

:nuke: :hide:

[NickB79]

17. So are the dead bodies of other humans

You take the first bite and tell us how it is.