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by foobarbecue 1153 days ago
I'd caution you against this idea that you can "know the feeling" of acute CO2 exposure.

For my PhD work (gas geochemistry) I spent hundreds of hours working in volcanic ice caves with CO2 levels up to 2% (we measured up to 3% but had a rule against being in above 2%). I always had a gas monitor with me so it was interesting to try and guess the levels. Neither I, nor anyone I was with, could guess reliably.

More than once I was with others in a cave, and they would freak out and say they felt high CO2 and we'd check the readings and nope. I actually think people (including myself) were responding to high humidity and heat and misinterpreting it as high CO2.

Of course, high CO2 is dangerous, all I'm saying is that it's surprisingly hard to disentangle it from all the other factors affecting how well your feel as a human, when you actually test yourself.

1 comments

I'm reasonably certain I notice levels above 800ppm. It's subtle, but everyone in the house starts getting a little edgy (kids and adults). Sure enough, the CO2 meter is reporting > 800.

I doubt I could differentiate between 800 and 1600 though.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but remember 1600 ppm is only 0.16%, so that's impressive sensitivity. 4x atmospheric.

We've been discussing 1% to 3%, which is 10,000 to 30,000ppm.