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During this time, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has varied between 180 and 210 ppm during ice ages, increasing to 280–300 ppm during warmer interglacials. [ 114 ] [ 115 ] CO 2 mole fractions in the atmosphere have gone up by around 35 percent since the 1900s, rising from 280 parts per million by volume to 387 parts per million ...
Although individual CO 2 molecules have a short residence time in the atmosphere, it takes an extremely long time for carbon dioxide levels to sink after sudden rises, due to e.g. volcanic eruptions or human activity [17] and among the many long-lasting greenhouse gases, it is the most important because it makes up the largest fraction of the ...
For example, methane has a GWP over 20 years (GWP-20) of 81.2 [38] meaning that, a leak of a tonne of methane is equivalent to emitting 81.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide measured over 20 years. As methane has a much shorter atmospheric lifetime than carbon dioxide, its GWP is much less over longer time periods, with a GWP-100 of 27.9 and a GWP-500 ...
As the source of carbon in the carbon cycle, atmospheric CO 2 is the primary carbon source for life on Earth. In the air, carbon dioxide is transparent to visible light but absorbs infrared radiation, acting as a greenhouse gas. Carbon dioxide is soluble in water and is found in groundwater, lakes, ice caps, and seawater.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2) concentrations from 1958 to 2023. The Keeling Curve is a graph of the annual variation and overall accumulation of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere based on continuous measurements taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory on the island of Hawaii from 1958 to the present day.
In a given year between 10 and 100 million tonnes of carbon moves around this slow cycle. This includes volcanoes returning geologic carbon directly to the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide. However, this is less than one percent of the carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. [2] [32] [37]
The ecosystems on the American Southwest’s federal lands are hemorrhaging carbon dioxide into the atmosphere faster than any other region in the U.S., according to a recent study from the U.S ...
The influence of the evolution of life has to be taken into account rather soon in the history of the atmosphere because hints of earliest life forms appeared as early as 3.5 billion years ago. [48] How Earth at that time maintained a climate warm enough for liquid water and life, if the early Sun put out 30% lower solar radiance than today, is ...