For billions of years, the gasses from volcanic eruptions have been the main cause for the earth’s global cooling and global warming (eg, USGS). Only the last 150 years, humans have played a much more significant role (eg, industrialisation, use of fossil fuels) than before. Animals – and especially cows – are also responsible for a significant amount of greenhouse gasses due to their farting (IPCC).
One of the main (ie, 65%) contributors to greenhouse gasses is carbon dioxide or CO2 (IPCC). Yet, “carbon dioxideis a colourless and odourlessgasvital to life on Earth” (Wikipedia). Whenever there is daylight, plants convert 6 elements of carbon dioxide (CO2) and 6 elements of Hydrogen/water (H2O) into 6 elements of Oxygen (O2) and sugar through a chemical process calledphotosynthesis.
This contradiction between life and death/doom is intriguing.
The composition of the Universe is quite interesting: Approximately 99% of the interstellar medium is composed of interstellar gas, and of its mass, about 75% is in the form of hydrogen (either molecular or atomic), with the remaining 25% as helium (source).
“When the universe started, there was just hydrogen and a little helium and very little of anything else. Helium is not in our bodies. Hydrogen is, but that’s not the bulk of our weight. Stars are like nuclear reactors. They take a fuel and convert it to something else. Hydrogen is formed into helium, and helium is built into carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, iron and sulfur—everything we’re made of”. Quote from Karel Schrijver, senior fellow at the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory.
Wikipedia: The composition of the human body can be looked at from the point of view of either mass composition, or atomic composition. The 3 main elements that constitute the human body are Oxygen (O), Hydrogen/water (H) and Carbon (C). Together they represent 93% of human mass and/or 98% by atomic count.
The Earth’s ecology has three main – natural – ways of dealing with carbon dioxide: storage and conversion by trees, storage in water (eg, oceans) and – especially – storage in rocks.
Trees absorb carbon dioxide and potentially harmful gasses, such as sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, from the air and release oxygen (NCSU). Essentially, oceans absorb carbon dioxide whenever there is too much in the air and release carbon dioxide back into the air when the air has insufficient carbon dioxide (eg, PMEL). WorldOceanReview: “The oceans store much more carbon than the atmosphere and the terrestrial biosphere (plants and animals). Even more carbon, however, is stored in the lithosphere, i.e. the rocks on the planet, including limestones (calcium carbonate, CaCO3)”.
A 2014 Dutch study did not find evidence that individual trees have grown by absorbing more carbon dioxide over the past 150 years. They did find evidence that trees reacted to more CO2 in the atmosphere. By analysing the carbon isotopes in the wood, they found trees were using water more efficiently and likely also became more efficient at photosynthesis, the process where light is converted into energy. For some reason, though, neither of these things translated into thicker tree rings or, the researchers suspect, bigger trees. However, the study left open the possibility that the total number of trees might have grown (eg, Nature Geoscience, Scientific American). Interestingly, a 2014 Nasa-led study suggests that tropical rainforest do grow faster because of increased carbon dioxide (eg, DailyMail).
An interesting analogy might be that the sea levels are also “growing” as ice is melting. This will enable more CO2 storage. The Earth’s lithosphere is also subject to “growth”: Satellite observations suggest that 100-300 metric tons of cosmic dust enter the atmosphere each day. This figure comes from the rate of accumulation in polar ice cores and deep-sea sediments of rare elements linked to cosmic dust, such as iridium and osmium (eg, NationalGeographic, Scien
Plate tectonics may also play a role in the Earth’s growth. GeologyNet: “Many theories on the mechanism for plate movement have been developed. The most popular and widely held view is that convection currents below the lithospheric plates, in the mantle, are responsible for their movement. This involves hot spots and subduction zones. The most radical view was that that developed by Carey (1954), Heezen (1959) and others, that the Earth is expanding causing the continents to break up and form plates”. See my 9 March 2015 blog: Growing Earth, Growing Universe theory.
Essentially, “Carbon is the element of life. The human body structure is based on it, and other animal and plant biomass such as leaves and wood consist predominantly of carbon” (WOR).
“Everything we are and everything in the universe and on Earth originated from stardust, and it continually floats through us even today. It directly connects us to the universe, rebuilding our bodies over and again over our lifetimes”. Quote from Iris Schrijver, professor of pathology at Stanford University.
Joni Mitchell – Woodstock (1969) – artist, lyrics, Wiki-1, Wiki-2
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil’s bargain
And we’ve got to get ourselves
back to the garden
Note: all italic markings are mine.
0 Comments