[rgbrenner]

Here are a few:

increased temp > increased evaporation > increased cloud coverage which reflects more sunlight

increased co2 > increased tree growth

increased co2 > increased algae, plankton growth to absorb co2... other marine animals will also feed on these, increasing their mass, and when they die, they'll sink to the bottom, where they'll mostly remain.

increased co2 > increased diffusion into seawater.. clams, oysters, etc combine this carbon with calcium to produce shells.. and when they die, they accumulate on the sea floor eventually turning into rock.

Unfortunately, the fact that co2 in the atmosphere is growing indicates we're overwhelming these.. I take zero comfort in the fact that these exists.. it actually makes me nervous because once they reach their maximum, co2 will start growing even more rapidly.. and then it'll be so much worse.

[themgt]

Not only is CO2 continuing to rise, but it's rate of growth appears to be accelerating, from ~1.5ppm/year in the 80s/90s to 2ppm/year earlier this decade and now as much as 2.5-3ppm/year average now.

If this continues, we'll hit 420ppm within a couple years, 430ppm maybe 4 years after that, over 440ppm if not nearing 450ppm by the end of the 2020s with no slowdown in sight.

Truly, truly alarming.

http://mlg.eng.cam.ac.uk/carl/words/carbon.html

[pdonis]

> increased evaporation > increased cloud coverage which reflects more sunlight

Also increased evaporation > increased latent heat transport to upper atmosphere where it can more easily escape to space. According to the numbers in Kiehl & Trenberth's global energy budget, total latent heat transport is about 80 W/m^2, which means a 5 percent increase in it would entirely cancel out the increased radiative forcing from a doubling of CO2. This is a negative feedback that I don't see discussed much at all.

> the fact that co2 in the atmosphere is growing indicates we're overwhelming these

No, it doesn't, it just indicates different timescales for CO2 emissions vs. uptake.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

>> the fact that co2 in the atmosphere is growing indicates we're overwhelming these

>No, it doesn't, it just indicates different timescales for CO2 emissions vs. uptake.

It's not clear to me what the distinction is you're trying to make here? If the time scale for emissions vs. uptake is different such that emissions are exceeding uptake capacity due to the different timescales, isn't the previous comment correct?

[pdonis]

> It's not clear to me what the distinction is you're trying to make here?

If the uptake timescale is longer, uptake will catch up to emissions over time (I realize I didn't make that sufficiently clear in my previous post), so CO2 growth does not indicate that uptake has reached "maximum", which is what the post I responded to was claiming.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

If uptake capacity is decreasing and CO2 emissions are increasing, which I'm lead to believe is the case, and atmospheric and oceanic CO2 levels are increasing, which I'm also lead to believe the case...

Then I don't understand where you're coming from?

[pdonis]

> If uptake capacity is decreasing

I never said that, and I don't think it's true. The timescale I was referring to is the timescale for uptake capacity to respond to a change in CO2 levels. For example, trees grow and reproduce more slowly than CO2 levels have been changing, so the increase in uptake from tree growth and reproduction takes some time to respond to an increase in CO2. But that doesn't mean it never responds. It does; uptake capacity does increase.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

Hmmmm, I just assumed global CO2 update capacity is decreasing, but I don't have any evidence I can link to immediately to support that.

This indicates to me I probably need to go away and do some research.

Thanks for bringing this assumption to my attention.

[baq]

One slight problem is that we know there were turtles and palm trees in the arctic 50My ago.

[rad88]

Have you looked at Project Vesta? It's a proposal to create olivine beaches around the tropics to boost sequestration due to rock weathering. I think it's somewhat disputed because rock weathering in a surf happens at a different rate than normal, but their analysis is that if "only" 2 percent of tropical beaches were covered in olivine the weathering would counteract current emissions. I can't tell how serious this proposal is and am curious to hear from anyone who knows more about this process.

https://projectvesta.org/

[mrskitch]

I’ve seen this thrown around as well, and would love to hear more. I’m interested in helping the project since it’s about the only one that has stood up to any scrutiny that I’ve seen

[goodname]

increased evaporation - water vapor is a potent green house gas

increased co2 > increased diffusion into seawater - isnt acidity of the ocean increasing, making it more difficult for the shelled sea life to even develop?

[pdonis]

> increased evaporation - water vapor is a potent green house gas

But its lifetime in the atmosphere is very short; the evaporated water vapor condenses in the upper atmosphere into clouds and precipitation.

What longer term numbers I have seen indicate that the average water vapor content of the atmosphere has been roughly constant during the warming of the last half century or so.

[labster]

More importantly there is tons and tons of water in the atmosphere, even in so-called dry places. There’s just no wiggle room in the water vapor spectral bands, optical path is pretty constant.

We will probably get more water vapor in the future but most of the PWAT ends up in clouds. And that’s where the feedbacks get interesting, cloud height is very important to radiative balance and there are a couple of indirect effects to consider too.

[ouid]

microplastics aggregate in longer lived predators organisms, killing sharks before plankton. Lowering the maximum size of animal paradoxically increases total biomass, though it's unclear by how much, and it's a pretty unstable proposition at its core what happens to humans in a mass extinction of large organisms.