CO2 - Atmosphere ?

[User]

 

[Yellow Fang]

I think the air was a bit thicker back in the carboniferous. There was the same amount of nitrogen but more oxygen. I think that's what allowed some of the dragonflies to be so massive back then.

Yes, there is actually relatively little CO2 in the atmosphere. A lot of it was pulled down by plant life and ended up as coal. I think a lot more of it was used by tiny sea plankton to build their shells. When the plankton died (coccoliths, I think they're called) they shells fell to the bottom and over time were crushed into sedimentary rock, such as limestone and chalk.

For the first several thousand years of Earth's existence, the atmosphere was not very breathable. It was very smelly because of the H2S gas. There was a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere. Oxygen levels eventually reached about 2% and stayed about that level for a long, long time. Then oxygen levels started rising as plant life took off.

 

[Night Train]

It doesn't take a lot of CO2 (or methane) to make a difference.
The Earth's atmosphere and plant life will cope with it but it make our lives less convenient.

Humans are meant to be adaptable but modern humans are becoming less adaptable then we would like to think we are.

 

[BrumJim]

It's one of the half-truths of the climate-change deniers that there is very little CO2 in the atmosphere, therefore CO2 production has very little effect on global warming.
It's something that no reasonable scientist would back up, even those that think that current climate change is not man-made, or that climate change is even happening.

 

[User482]

It's thanks to that tiny concentration of CO2 that life on earth is possible - it would be too cold otherwise.

 

[green1]

For the first several thousand years of Earth's existence, the atmosphere was not very breathable.

That's because for the first good few million years it was a ball of molten Iron and didn't have an atmosphere at all (or water for that matter). That came later via asteroids.

 

[MacB]

[QUOTE 2027602, member: 9609"]Quite the contrary - if the ideal amount is very small then it is more understandable how we are making a significant difference in the burning of fossil fuels. something like a 25% increase in the last 50 years

Think of it another way, add £10k to my bank balance and changes will occur, add £10k to Abramovich's account and I doubt he would notice the difference.[/quote]

You see you never know what can pop up on these threads....that's an angle, or a way of putting it, that I'd never considered or remember reading.

Talking about it as a trace element may make more sense to lots of people - generally no-one has trouble understanding the concept that we need small amounts of trace elements in our bodies but that too much becomes poisonous.

 

[fossyant]

That's because for the first good few million years it was a ball of molten Iron and didn't have an atmosphere at all (or water for that matter). That came later via a steroids.

Fixed that - could do with some more oxygen for strava bagging, but now you tell me they were on steroids back then - crikey