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Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Greater 1.4 Billion Years Ago
Science Daily News ^ | September 19, 2003 | Staff via Virginia Tech Release

Posted on 09/20/2003 9:43:49 PM PDT by PeaceBeWithYou

Blacksburg, Va., September 18, 2003 -- Billions of years ago, there was a lot more greenhouse gas than today, and that was a good thing – else the Earth might be an icy ball.

How much greenhouse gas was there in the ancient atmosphere? A 1993 model by Jim Kasting of Pennsylvania State University estimates that carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the Earth's early atmosphere must have been 10 times to as much as 10,000 times today's level, in order to compensate for the young (and fainter) sun. Now, a measurement of the fossil record using a new instrument has confirmed a portion of the model. Atmospheric CO2 level 1.4 billion years ago was at least ten to 200 times greater than today, according to the new research.

The findings are reported in the September 18, 2003, issue of Nature by Alan Jay Kaufman of the geology department at the University of Maryland and Shuhai Xiao of the geosciences department at Virginia Tech ("High CO2 levels in the Proterozoic atmosphere estimated from analyses of individual microfossils").

The researchers determined the CO2 level by using the carbon ion microprobe housed at the Carnegie Institute in Washington, D.C. They conducted their studies on the microscopic fossil Dictyosphaera delicata from Proterozoic shales in northern China. "This was a eukaryotic photosynthesizer – it had a nucleus and made organic matter from CO2 – about one-tenth of a millimeter in size," says Xiao. "It had the ability to become dormant in bad times, when it formed a robust wall to protect itself. That tough wall is what is preserved in the fossil record."

All modern eukaryotic photosynthesizers use a similar biochemical pathway to convert CO2 into organic matter. "We assume the old guy used the same biochemical pathway," says Xiao. Therefore, they would be able to measure the type of carbon in the fossil in order to determine the CO2 concentrations in the ocean and the atmosphere.

"We zapped into the fossil using a 10 micrometer ion beam, which destroys a small amount of the organic material and ejects carbon ions, which we analyzed," says Xiao.

The critical measure was the amount of carbon-12 (12C) versus carbon-13 (13C). D. delicata formed their organic wall from dissolved CO2 in the ocean. Carbon dioxide formed with 12C is preferred because it is lighter. The higher ratio of 12C in the tissue would indicate higher levels of CO2 available in the water. Since D. delicata lived in the surface ocean, which is at equilibrium with the atmosphere, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere could also be calculated.

Carbon dioxide today is 350 parts per million (ppm) or .035 percent – compared to 270 ppm before industrialization – a less than 30 percent increase. But 1.4 billion years ago, CO2 was more than 10 to 200 times today's level.

"This gives us a geological context for CO2 evolution and climate change," says Xiao. While Kaufman and Xiao's study confirms the model, "We need more data points to fill the gaps and test the model for the first four billion years," Xiao says.

There are many data points to confirm the model from the last half billion years, but the Kaufman and Xiao study provide only the second data point between a half billion years ago and 4.5 billion years ago. Rob Rye at University of Southern California and colleagues looked at ancient soil from 2.7 billion years ago and determined there was barely enough CO2 to compensate for the weaker Sun – the lowest range of the Kasting model. "But there were probably significant amounts of other greenhouse gases, such as methane, 2.7 billion years ago," says Xiao.

The Earth's atmosphere became more oxidized by 2.2 billion years ago, after which methane became a less significant greenhouse gas, "But, by the period of our study, there was plenty of CO2," says Xiao.

Xiao and Kaufman began their collaboration at Harvard, where Kaufman was a post-doctoral associate while Xiao was a graduate student. The research was supported by NASA Exobiology, NSF Geology and Paleontology, and China Ministry of Science and Technology 973 programs. Xiao was a faculty member at Tulane University before joining the Virginia Tech faculty this fall.

This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Virginia Tech.



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; Technical
KEYWORDS: carbondioxide; climatechange; co2; crevolist; environment; fossils; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; godsgravesglyphs; kyoto; paleontology
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To: Dr Zilman
Global Warming is a natural event. Science proves it. Unfortunately, the Luddites who promote the "dangers" of Global Warming have siezed upon the topic to force their perverse desires of anti-technological advancement on the worlds masses. Just as the forces against change and advancement failed prior to the Renaissance, so too will the ignorant be discredited and defeated.
21 posted on 09/21/2003 12:39:47 AM PDT by Thumper1960
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To: PeaceBeWithYou
...EnvironMENTAList BUMP...
22 posted on 09/21/2003 3:26:55 AM PDT by MayDay72 (...My vehicle...My choice...Keep your laws off my SUV...)
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To: PeaceBeWithYou

23 posted on 09/21/2003 3:44:45 AM PDT by BunnySlippers (I'm voting for Arnold. McClintock doesn't deserve my vote!)
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To: PeaceBeWithYou
For the amount of money the Kyoto Treaty will cost us, we could develop a lot of cooling.

Or, the landgrabbing hotheads could move to higher ground...I recommend Canada.

Our national parks, national forests, wildlife refuges, and other public lands total 623 million acres -- 14 times the size of all six New England states, or almost six times the size of California.

24 posted on 09/21/2003 4:29:53 AM PDT by Susannah (Over 200 people murdered in L. A.County-first 5 mos. of 2003 & NONE were fighting Iraq!!)
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To: Dr Zilman

The continuous pumping of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by thousands of power generating facilities doesn't mean a thing

It doesn't begin to even match the output of one volcano, much less the contributions the Earth's total natural emmissions.

 

Mankind's impact is only 0.28% of Total Greenhouse effect

" There is no dispute at all about the fact that even if punctiliously observed, (the Kyoto Protocol) would have an imperceptible effect on future temperatures -- one-twentieth of a degree by 2050. "

Dr. S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist
Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia,
and former director of the US Weather Satellite Service;
in a Sept. 10, 2001 Letter to Editor, Wall Street Journal

 

Anthropogenic (man-made) Contribution to the "Greenhouse
Effect," expressed as % of Total (water vapor INCLUDED)

Based on concentrations (ppb) adjusted for heat retention characteristics  % of All Greenhouse Gases

% Natural

% Man-made

 Water vapor 95.000% 

 94.999%

0.001% 
 Carbon Dioxide (CO2) 3.618% 

 3.502%

0.117% 
 Methane (CH4) 0.360% 

 0.294%

0.066% 
 Nitrous Oxide (N2O) 0.950% 

 0.903%

0.047% 
 Misc. gases ( CFC's, etc.) 0.072% 

 0.025%

0.047% 
 Total 100.00% 

 99.72

0.28% 

 

Climate Catastrophe, A spectroscopic Artifact?

"It is hardly to be expected that for CO2 doubling an increment of IR absorption at the 15 µm edges by 0.17% can cause any significant global warming or even a climate catastrophe.

The radiative forcing for doubling can be calculated by using this figure. If we allocate an absorption of 32 W/m2 [14] over 180º steradiant to the total integral (area) of the n3 band as observed from satellite measurements (Hanel et al., 1971) and applied to a standard atmosphere, and take an increment of 0.17%, the absorption is 0.054 W/m2 - and not 4.3 W/m2.

This is roughly 80 times less than IPCC's radiative forcing.

If we allocate 7.2 degC as greenhouse effect for the present CO2 (as asserted by Kondratjew and Moskalenko in J.T. Houghton's book The Global Climate [14]), the doubling effect should be 0.17% which is 0.012 degC only. If we take 1/80 of the 1.2 degC that result from Stefan-Boltzmann's law with a radiative forcing of 4.3 W/m2, we get a similar value of 0.015 degC."


 

CO2-Temperature Correlations

[ see also: Indermuhle et al. (2000), Monnin et al. (2001), Yokoyama et al. (2000), Clark and Mix (2000) ]

[see: Petit et al. (1999), Staufer et al. (1998), Cheddadi et al., (1998), Raymo et al., 1998, Pagani et al. (1999), Pearson and Palmer (1999), Pearson and Palmer, (2000) ]


 

Seems as though there is room for substantial doubt as to any negative effect human created CO2, Methane etc. may have on our Climate future.

At least these folks believe so:

Petition Project: http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p357.htm

During the past 2 years, more than 17,100 basic and applied American scientists, two-thirds with advanced degrees, have signed the Global Warming Petition.

Specifically declaring:

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate."

Signers of this petition so far include 2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists (select this link for a listing of these individuals) who are especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide on the Earth's atmosphere and climate.

Signers of this petition also include 5,017 scientists whose fields of specialization in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, and other life sciences (select this link for a listing of these individuals) make them especially well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide upon the Earth's plant and animal life.

Nearly all of the initial 17,100 scientist signers have technical training suitable for the evaluation of the relevant research data, and many are trained in related fields.


25 posted on 09/21/2003 7:21:18 AM PDT by ancient_geezer
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To: PatrickHenry
Ping.
26 posted on 09/21/2003 11:29:17 AM PDT by balrog666 (As long as people believe in absurdities, they will continue to commit atrocities.)
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To: *crevo_list; VadeRetro; jennyp; Junior; longshadow; RadioAstronomer; Scully; Piltdown_Woman; ...
PING. [This ping list is for the evolution side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. FReepmail me to be added or dropped.]
27 posted on 09/21/2003 12:13:50 PM PDT by PatrickHenry (A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger. Or try "Virtual Ignore.")
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To: PatrickHenry
Impossible! Where are the fossil SUVs?

Rented a Plymouth Town & Country van for one day while hauling old furniture out of my Mom's house two weeks ago. With two rows of seats pulled out of the back (an operation the dealer did in nothing flat), it handled two writing desks, two single beds, an old kitchen table, and a bunch of odds and ends in two trips. While I don't ordinarily need that much vehicle, I can see the appeal.

28 posted on 09/21/2003 12:46:31 PM PDT by VadeRetro
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To: VadeRetro
Chrysler T&C! (Brain fart.)
29 posted on 09/21/2003 12:51:34 PM PDT by VadeRetro
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To: VadeRetro; PatrickHenry
With two rows of seats pulled out of the back (an operation the dealer did in nothing flat), it handled two writing desks, two single beds, an old kitchen table, and a bunch of odds and ends in two trips

LOL! That's bigger than my office! :-)

30 posted on 09/21/2003 1:48:14 PM PDT by RadioAstronomer
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To: RadioAstronomer
Bet your office uses less gas, though!
31 posted on 09/21/2003 1:55:47 PM PDT by VadeRetro
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To: VadeRetro
Bet your office uses less gas, though!

Hopefully the occupant does not produce the gas instead! ROTFLMAO!

32 posted on 09/21/2003 2:00:43 PM PDT by RadioAstronomer
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To: Susannah
Seems to be an accurate map of ownership, especially in Alaska, where it might be noted only 1% is in private ownership. The actual State of Alaska is about the size of Pennsylvania.
33 posted on 09/21/2003 3:11:03 PM PDT by RightWhale (Repeal the Law of the Excluded Middle)
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To: Fledermaus
As with law, the Constitution, simple math, etc., the idiots on the left can't even understand basic scientific facts.

Yes, but they and their sycophants in the press understand human emotion and how to manipulate it to their advantage.

The question becomes, "When will thinking, reasoning people learn that bit of "How to...", also?

I admit it is an uphill battle. The truth is most always less interesting than speculation.

34 posted on 09/21/2003 3:21:56 PM PDT by stboz
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To: PatrickHenry
Thanks for the ping, Patrick.
35 posted on 09/21/2003 5:08:27 PM PDT by Victoria Delsoul (The Tombot's motto is: "I'm opposed to whatever Arnold says, and most definitely against it")
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To: PatrickHenry
Thanks for the heads up! Hugs!
36 posted on 09/21/2003 8:54:07 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: RightWhale
The actual State of Alaska is about the size of Pennsylvania

I'm not sure what you mean. Area wise, Alaska is our largest state.
Alaska------656,424 sq miles
Texas-------268,601 sq miles
California--163,707 sq miles

37 posted on 09/21/2003 11:11:23 PM PDT by Susannah (Arnold Schwarzenegger is not the Terminator....he's the Kindergarden Cop!)
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To: PatrickHenry
placemarker
38 posted on 09/22/2003 7:39:56 AM PDT by js1138
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To: Susannah
The actual State of Alaska is about the size of Pennsylvania
I'm not sure what you mean.

The point is that 1% of the area is in private ownership and a larger percentage is in state ownership, the rest, the greatest part of the land mass, is in corporate ownership, either Federal or Native corporation. The actual State of Alaska is small.

39 posted on 09/22/2003 8:53:46 AM PDT by RightWhale (Repeal the Law of the Excluded Middle)
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To: RightWhale
Alaska Land Ownership (source of info):

* Federal government: 222 million acres, 60% of the total area of Alaska.

* State government: Currently the state has received patent to approximately 90 million acres of the 105 million acres granted at statehood. This represents roughly 25% of the total area of Alaska.

* Native lands: These are private lands held by regional and village Native corporations. 44 million acres are owned by Native corporations.

* Private lands: Other than Native land, land in private ownership accounts for less than 1% of land in Alaska.

40 posted on 09/22/2003 11:06:28 AM PDT by PatrickHenry (Hic amor, haec patria est.)
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