42
votes
Is there any experiment to prove that CO2 with the atmosphere concentration can have greenhouse effect?
Your question about water vapour is quite a common one among people learning about the greenhouse effect. Once you discover the relevant proportions of water vapour and CO2 in the atmosphere, it's ...
16
votes
Accepted
Does rain (temporarily) deplete the surrounding atmosphere of carbon dioxide?
Here is the mass-calculation. We will consider a column of the atmosphere with a footprint of 1m × 1m. This column weighs about 10,000 kg (per square metre). In these days of climate change we will ...
12
votes
Accepted
Can I use diamonds as fossil fuel?
Diamonds are expensive. Really expensive. Even "cheap" synthetic diamonds are orders of magnitude more expensive than conventional fossil fuel. By using them as fuel, you will increase ...
11
votes
Is there any experiment to prove that CO2 with the atmosphere concentration can have greenhouse effect?
Experiments don't necessarily prove things, per se; and in particular, a single experiment tends not to prove anything - at the very least, replication of the experiment is required. Experiments ...
9
votes
Accepted
How much does overpopulation affect the carbon dioxide concentration in the air in terms of just breathing?
Human and animal respiration has no global warming impacts. The CO2 released by respiration is in balance with the CO2 absorbed by the plants that became the foods that were the source of the CO2 ...
8
votes
Accepted
Why is there so much more silicon than carbon in the Earth's crust?
So where did it go?
Carbon was never there (or here) to begin with. You need to look at this from the opposite way. By asking "where did it go" you assuming the Earth was here first, with carbon, and ...
8
votes
Is there any experiment to prove that CO2 with the atmosphere concentration can have greenhouse effect?
The short answer to your question really is just this: Yes, CO2 causes global warming.
There are many resources out there on the internet that explain this in about as much detail as you can tolerate,...
8
votes
Is there any experiment to prove that CO2 with the atmosphere concentration can have greenhouse effect?
To see why we can't perform an experiment in lab conditions to verify the greenhouse effect, we need to start by considering how the [rather badly named] greenhouse effect operates:
The Earth is in (...
7
votes
Why is more carbon in the atmosphere good, up to a certain level?
If plants were growing poorly when atmospheric CO2 was 200ppm, it was probably because Earth was in the middle of an ice age and covered with glaciers, not because plants were starved of carbon ...
7
votes
Is $\ce{CO_2}$ in photosynthesis the only way for carbon to become organic?
The answer is no. One important mechanism that also fixes carbon is chemosynthesis. One good example of this production is around hydrothermal vents in the bottom of the ocean.
Chemosynthesis is the ...
6
votes
Is there any experiment to prove that CO2 with the atmosphere concentration can have greenhouse effect?
The Faint Young Sun Paradox - how greenhouse gases can keep a planet warm:
When the Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago the Sun was around 30% less luminous than it is today and it has increased ...
6
votes
Accepted
Would home heat pumps provide large benefits against climate change?
The values on the DEFRA table with the column heading $ kg\ \ce{N2O} $ already include the global warming potential (GWP) factor of 298, as indicated by a note on the column heading (looking at ...
6
votes
Accepted
If methane decays to $\small\sf{CO_2}$ in the atmosphere, shouldn't there be much more $\small\sf{CO_2}$?
So what am I missing in this analysis?
The linked data says 2017 CH4 was about 1850 ppb, not 1850 ppm. Dividing parts per billion (ppb) by 1000 results in parts per million (ppm). In other words, ...
5
votes
Accepted
Percentage of power plants with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology?
If you accept GE's estimate of the number of global fossil fuel power plants ( 17,500 ) and compare it to the number of CCS projects out there ( 22 ), you get roughly 0.1 %.
The Global CCS Institute ...
5
votes
Accepted
Does organic decay release the same CO2 as burning?
I can't quantify the answer, but intuitively, nearly all of a burning tree's carbon is converted to $\small\mathsf{CO_2}$ - assuming the fire is hot enough. You are correct in assuming that termites ...
5
votes
Accepted
In an Earth-like planet with no history of carbon-based life forms, would there be limestone?
I'd have to say, yes. Once life evolved in the world's oceans, the vast majority of limestone formation has been through the organic process. However, before life did evolve, limestone formed through ...
4
votes
Is Radiocarbon dating flawed?
I will preface this by saying that I am not particularly familiar with radiocarbon dating techniques, and therefore the minutiae are somewhat lost on me. However, as someone who works with several ...
4
votes
But what exactly is "black carbon" in the context of snow-melting particulates reaching Antarctica?
This issue has been extensively studied and identified. A Google search regarding the particle size of black carbon will yield a plethora of information.
Chemically, black carbon (BC) is a component ...
4
votes
Accepted
How do you convert the μmol/mol units for atmospheric CO2 into CO2 mass fraction?
TL;DR: Multiply $\ce{CO_2}$ expressed in μmol/mol by 1.52 the μg/g equivalent.
Details: The molecular mass of $\ce{CO_2}$ is 44.01 g/mol. The standard molecular mass of dry air is 28.9647 g/mol. ...
3
votes
If a person uses public transport, how much carbon is added to the footprint?
I'm no expert on such subjects, but did Google and immediately this Guardian article offering a dataset apparently attributed to Camden Council/travelfootprint.org/Clear Zone Partnership. There are a ...
3
votes
How much net carbon can coral sequester?
Corals usually grow 1cm every year, some as slow as 2mm, some faster.
Coral sand density is about 1.5g /cm2, it's not the best estimate of coral weight. So, a coral organism of 10cm^2 produces 150 ...
3
votes
In an Earth-like planet with no history of carbon-based life forms, would there be limestone?
In an Earth-like planet with no history of carbon-based life forms, would there be limestone?
Short answer: Maybe.
The form of carbon in limestone is oxidised carbon: carbonate: CO32-. This is ...
3
votes
Accepted
Will photosynthesis based carbon sequestration always be more efficient than other chemical means - in terms of rate?
Rate.. no.
Brute Force
We can treat this as an industrial chemistry question. The brute-force method for carbon sequesteration is simply:
Extract CO2 from the air (using the acid/base chemistry, ...
3
votes
Does organic decay release the same CO2 as burning?
When a forest is used for sustainable fuel, there is a range of age classes in the forest, some old, some middle aged and so on. Wood harvest takes the oldest trees leaving young trees to take their ...
3
votes
Does organic decay release the same CO2 as burning?
The key word in your query is the word "essentially". Termites and bacteria die too. So whatever carbon was initially converted from the tree into termites or bacteria ends up mostly going to $\small\...
3
votes
Is $\ce{CO_2}$ in photosynthesis the only way for carbon to become organic?
In addition to chemosynthesis by living organisms, carbon dioxide can be reduced to methane and more complex hydrocarbons by serpentization.
Serpentization is a high-temperature, high-pressure ...
3
votes
Accepted
Can a person's individual carbon emissions become negative over their lifetime?
Aussies emit ~15 tonnes CO2 per capita per year. Current carbon capture and storage technology can bury CO2 for \$40-\$57 per tonne (estimate for early 2020s). So, yes, you could do this for ~$50,000 ....
3
votes
Accepted
Looking for details on data presented in IPCC AR6 WG1 report
Oh dear, I agree that this is a poorly explained figure. Let's look at the caption:
Yellow arrows represent annual carbon fluxes (in PgC yr–1) associated with the natural carbon cycle, estimated for ...
3
votes
What is the current atmospheric concentration of $\small\sf{CO_2}$ in the atmosphere in atm (or bar)?
What I think you are asking for is the partial pressure of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The partial pressure of carbon dioxide can be determined, where,
$P_{CO_2} \ = \ x_{CO_2}\cdot P_{atm}$
One ...
2
votes
How do I calculate Per capita $\ce{CO2}$ emissions?
If Canada produced 0.55 (Gt) of $\ce{CO2}$ emissions from 34 million people in 2010, the per capita emissions is indeed $1.6\times10^{-8}$ Gt of $\ce{CO2}$ per person per year. This is equivalent to ...
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