Doug’s Mouthpiece – Droug.co.uk

Dr Keeling who was he????

The guy who started the tracking of the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere…….

The next problem was to figure out why the carbon dioxide varied the way it did during the year (i.e. the little squiggles). Was it processes on land, having to do with plant growth? Or did it come from the ocean? There are ways to distinguish between the two possibilities, and the answer is that the little squiggles in the Keeling curve are actually due to land plants. Since most of the land is in the northern hemisphere, the fluctuations are greatest there. (If the ocean were to blame, we should see a larger effect in the southern hemisphere.) Every spring, when trees leaf out and grasslands and farmlands green, the carbon dioxide in the air decreases, reflecting the uptake from photosynthesis. Conversely, in fall, when leaves and wilted plants are returned to the soil and decay, the carbon dioxide rises again. Thus, one can envision the Earth “breathing” on an annual cycle, and we can measure how deeply.

Another little fact:

The average life-time of a molecule of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, before it is captured by vegetation and afterwards released, is about twelve years. This fact, that the exchange of carbon between atmosphere and vegetation is rapid, is of fundamental importance to the long-range future of global warming.

Therefore, if we can control what the trees do with the carbon, the fate of the carbon in the atmosphere is in our hands. How a bout genetically modified trees that eat Carbon Dioxide aggresively……..

Doug still concerned

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Politics written by Doug Scott