
Atmospheric carbon dioxide passes 400ppm - weatherlight
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/world-passes-400-ppm-threshold-permanently-20738
======
kapitza
Whenever I see this figure reported on a numerically literate site like HN, I
always wonder how many readers know whether the thermal forcing due to CO2 is
(a) exponential, (b) logarithmic, or (c) linear as a function of the ppm.

Upvote if you didn't know the answer and had to Google it? Downvote if
everybody knows the answer and it's a stupid question?

~~~
credit_guy
In addition to that please raise your hand if you know why the answer to the
above question is irrelevant for understanding climate change. Choose the best
answer: A) CO2 is by far not the most important greenhouse gas B) the climate
change is driven by complex interactions among (mainly) CO2, water vapors,
clouds, precipitations, sea surface evaporation, air currents C) the thermal
forcing mentioned above is determined assuming none of the interactions in
point B) D) all of the above

~~~
MagnumOpus
By elimination, only (B) is true.

(A) is false - while water vapour has high radiative forcing, it is not "an
important greenhouse gas" in the big picture, unlike what the coal industry
reps say. This [1] should explain why. Methane and CFCs are far less important
in aggregate (about 1/3 and 1/4 of the effect of CO2 respectively), although
they are far more dangerous per unit of volume.

(C) is obviously false - even in the low level layman explanation in [1] you
can see that they include a table with the forcings of various combinations
(like H2O vapour+CO2); you can also see that the table is from 1978, so
scientists have done that since way before you were born.

(D) false

[1]
[http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-...](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-
vapour-feedback-or-forcing/)

~~~
credit_guy
Thanks for your thoughtful reply and your link. I think that article is quite
informative, and also well written. I guess it was not authored by the coal
industry, but still it states literally "water vapor is indeed the most
important greenhouse gas".

------
brchr
I wanted to make more sense of some of these CO2 headlines, so I put together
a scraper that generates live D3 charts of the most recent CO2 measurements
from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and keeps them up to date.

Here’s weekly:
[https://www.numer.al/scripps_data/figures/atmospheric-c02-co...](https://www.numer.al/scripps_data/figures/atmospheric-c02-concentration-
weekly)

Monthly:
[https://www.numer.al/scripps_data/figures/atmospheric-c02-co...](https://www.numer.al/scripps_data/figures/atmospheric-c02-concentration-
monthly)

And yearly (avg): [https://www.numer.al/scripps_data/figures/atmospheric-
co2-co...](https://www.numer.al/scripps_data/figures/atmospheric-
co2-concentration-running-12-month-average)

And the really scary one, similar to the recent XKCD, is the ice core data
from the NOAA: [https://www.numer.al/noaa_data/figures/antarctic-ice-
cores-r...](https://www.numer.al/noaa_data/figures/antarctic-ice-cores-
revised-800kyr-co2-data)

(Fun fact, Postgres date fields underflow after 4713 BC, but the data actually
goes back another 700,000 years!)

~~~
mastazi
OT: All numer.al graphs are empty in my browser (I can see both axes but there
is no line inside the graph). Using Firefox with Adblock Plus and HTTPS
Everywhere. PS Temporarily disabling the aforementioned plugins did not help.

~~~
brchr
@mastazi Thanks for the heads up! I was testing in Chrome and Safari and
missed that one completely -- apparently they allow for a circle radius ("r")
to be defined in a stylesheet, but Firefox doesn’t. It’s cross-compatible now
-- cheers!

~~~
mastazi
Cool! Is numer.al a personal project of yours? Do you have a quick description
of the features? By the way it looks good, congrats!

~~~
brchr
Thank you! Yes, I’ve been working on it as a way both to visualize and to stay
current with some of the things I’ve been seeing in the news that are of
interest to me, related to the environment, the energy sector, economy, etc.
With the election coming up, I’ve been looking a lot at the types of
indicators being mentioned in debates (crime, deficit, etc.).

At the moment you can “follow” figures and view a feed of the ones you follow
in reverse-chronological order by the time of the latest update (I’m working
on an “email me when this changes” option too), and you can drag the thumbnail
graphs over one another and drop them to see two numbers compared. The
comparison view also gives the option to make your own charts derived from
existing ones: e.g., you can make a “per capita” chart by dragging anything
over the Census figures and clicking “Proportion.” The “downstream” chart will
automatically update when its “upstream” charts do.

It’s very much a work in progress, and if it proves useful, I’d love to hear
more from you about the kinds of things that would be of interest to add to
it!

~~~
mastazi
Awesome! I've created an account so I can play with it. I believe that fact-
checking is increasingly becoming crucial in the political discourse,
especially given that many politicians are taking a "relaxed" stance towards
it [1]. Luckily, at the same time, there are a number of electors who demand
that candidates back their claims with sources [2].

One small and nit-picky suggestion: make sure that the non-www version of
numer.al redirects to the www one (currently the former just doesn't seem to
work for me).

[1]
[http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21706525-politicians-h...](http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21706525-politicians-
have-always-lied-does-it-matter-if-they-leave-truth-behind-entirely-art)

[2] [https://xkcd.com/285/](https://xkcd.com/285/)

~~~
brchr
I would love to hear any feedback you might have! I completely agree with you
about fact-checking. One mini-feature that’s implemented right now is the
ability to select a range in a graph and then copy/paste the URL, and when
someone opens it in a new window they’ll see exactly the highlight you made
with the same % change displayed. It makes it really easy to back up
particular assertions across a time series.

And yes, I was having some issues with the DNS because of the way Heroku
interacts with root domains, but that should be sorted as of today and the
apex numer.al domain should work just as well as www. Thanks for the heads up!

------
spacehome
Missing from the article is any explanation of why 400 ppm is more significant
than 350 or 500 or 600. Is this something educated people are already supposed
to know?

~~~
creshal
My first idea was
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_climate_change](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_climate_change)
, but that cites a 550 ppm threshold.

~~~
loader
Based on the graph in op's article, my napkin math says if we maintain ppm
increases we'd reach 550ppm around 2055.

------
farorm
What I don't get is why policy makers doesn't see this as an opportunity for
economic growth. Just start taxing emission and invest heavily in green
technology and we could be on our way to start a new industrial revolution!

~~~
dmix
The US government's investments in both solar power and clean coal have been
either failures or ended up costs wayyy more and taking twice as long. Typical
of modern government projects but still bad enough where just saying "throw
tax dollars at green tech" isn't as straight-forward solution as it seems.

Why not reduce taxes for corporations building green tech? And provide R&D
credit to pay the salaries of engineers working on the problem? Reduce capital
gains taxes on investments in green tech? Make it easier for really smart
immigrants to come to the US to work on the problem? Create a commission who's
job is to review and simplify/eliminate/modernize regulations to reduce
barriers to entry in the marketplace? etc.

There are lots of ways to incentivize industry to solve this problem instead
of _adding_ more taxes and hoping the government works as a good VC.

The Canadian government tried (and is trying) the angel investor/VC thing here
and it hasn't worked at all well. They do stuff like matching investments of
other angels or giving loans to entrepreneurs. I'd much rather they made it
easier for me to start and run a company by reducing the stuff they are
already doing instead of doing more things... like pretending they are private
investors. For example, they recently announced a Startup Founder Visa which I
think is a great idea and a step in the right direction:
[http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/start-
up/](http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/business/start-up/)

~~~
nostrademons
Not really sure about that. The cost of solar has come down _dramatically_ and
the technology has made huge strides in efficiency, largely because of the
government subsidies. Sure, it's a financial failure for the government, but
usually government subsidies are not intended to run a profit (lest the
government be accused of profiteering or crowding out private investment).

~~~
CountSessine
Manufacture of PV panels is being further subsidized in China, something that
generally isn't acknowledged in the West. If the CPC wasn't as paranoid of
political change borne of discontent over smoggy cities, it's hard to say
where PV prices would be.

Also bear in mind that assessing the 'cost of solar' is a toy problem as long
as solar can't supply baseload power requirements.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Solar + battery storage can provide base load. It already does so in parts of
Hawaii.

The cost of solar will continue to crater; it is not a matter of "if" we will
run entirely on solar, but only "when" at this point.

~~~
keypusher
entirely on solar? never. solar + wind + geothermal + hydro + nuclear? sure,
someday.

~~~
rangibaby
100% nuclear would work too but is politically unviable. Waste and the risk of
accidents are a big problem, but at this point I believe they would be
preferable to breathing in fossil fuel emissions all day.

~~~
CountSessine
Every existing light water reactor in the world could melt down like Fukushima
and it won't come close the human disaster that will happen if much of the
world's climate exceeds a wet bulb temperature of 35C for any part of the
year.

------
Keyframe
If only people weren't so scared of nuclear.

~~~
rando444
Nuclear at the moment isn't scaleable.

We already have more nuclear waste than is currently able to be stored.. and
we're talking about stuff that is going to remain deadly for tens of thousands
of years.

There's nowhere to put the stuff unless we start blasting it out into outer
space or develop ways to use it for more energy.

~~~
oh_sigh
Where are we putting waste from all the coal firing plants? Directly into the
air!

~~~
einrealist
Does not make it an excuse for nuclear either.

~~~
oh_sigh
When you have to choose one of two options, then yes it does offset.

------
ph0rque
Not to sound like a broken record, but for the average American,
$15/person/year will plant enough trees to offset all the CO2 released into
the atmosphere by that person:
[http://shindyapin.tumblr.com/post/141034501197/climate-
chang...](http://shindyapin.tumblr.com/post/141034501197/climate-change-
solution-simplified)

Why aren't we doing it? Because nobody is forcing us, and very few are doing
it voluntarily.

~~~
mathattack
To extrapolate, then, we can solve this for $15 * 300,000,000 = $4.5 billion
for the US? And if we are 25% of the world's carbon production (I'm pulling
this out of the air) then we can do this for $18 billion? This is on the order
of a 10th of a percent of GDP per year. Can it really be that low?

~~~
amock
I don't see how this could work. You need a place to plant all of those trees
and let them grow and then store them so that they don't decompose and release
CO2 back into the atmosphere. That's a lot of land and it seems like if you
continually harvest trees without letting them decompose you'll need to
fertilize the land to keep the trees growing well.

~~~
ph0rque
My calculations assume a tree will sequester the carbon for 10 years. I'm sure
we can do a lot better than that, but even with these assumptions, it's pretty
cheap to sequester the CO2 on an ongoing basis.

~~~
abraae
Timber buildings.

~~~
ph0rque
Yes, and also food (fruits, leaves, etc), medicine, wooden furniture, clothes
([http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/will-your-
next-t-...](http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/will-your-next-t-shirt-
be-made-from-trees.html)), and many other items.

------
yan
I recently started reading "Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air"[1], which
is available as a free book, and it's been a wonderful introduction to
reasoning about alternative energy. The author also gave a talk a few years
ago that is very approachable[2].

[1] [https://www.withouthotair.com/](https://www.withouthotair.com/) [2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFosQtEqzSE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFosQtEqzSE)

~~~
yessql
It's interesting, but his solar PV assumptions are pretty outdated in the
book. He talks about utility scale solar being 10% efficient, where as it is
around 17% now. Even at 10% efficiency, he says it's feasible, but too
expensive. We are now at 2.42 cents per kWh unsubsidized for utility scale
solar, in the best case. He says solar PV is 4x as expensive as conventional
electricity production, which is clearly not true anymore. And the trend says
PV will be 4x cheaper than coal within a couple of decades.

~~~
sid-kap
It would be cool to maintain a fork of the book with updated figures. Is the
tex source available anywhere?

EDIT: What seems to be the latest version of the source files is hosted at
[http://www.inference.eng.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/book/tex/](http://www.inference.eng.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/book/tex/).

------
blisterpeanuts
Yikes! At least it's good for the plants.

I feel optimistic, however. We are on the cusp of really efficient solar
panels and excellent batteries that will finally make it practical to power
homes and offices from sunlight most of the time.

Electric vehicles are ramping up and it's very likely that in 20 years, the
average passenger car on the road will be electric, or at least plug-in hybrid
with 100 mpg or better.

Ultimately, we'll stop burning so much stuff. Will it be too late, or will the
relatively sudden dropoff in CO2 production affect the PPM? Should be
interesting to watch, for those of us who live long enough.

~~~
hacker42
> At least it's good for the plants.

There are plants (for example hop and wheat [1]) that cannot grow well at high
CO2 concentrations.

[1]
[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/328/5980/899.abstract](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/328/5980/899.abstract)

~~~
hfourm
That may be the key. Save the hops.

~~~
hinkley
SAVE THE BEER

------
Fej
We are in deep shit.

We can change, or we can die. Continued emissions at our current rate _will_
kill us. We're already teetering at the precipice of feedback loops and may be
committed to some.

At this point, we need a Manhattan-Project-level effort to end carbon
emissions as we know them. Else we just have to hope that colonies on Mars and
the Moon will be able to sustain the species while we nuke ourselves over
resource wars here on Earth.

The problem is worse than most people know. It doesn't help that we have a
segment of the population here in the US that is willing to ignore all
evidence on the issue.

~~~
bagels
An earth even 10 degrees warmer than now will be much more habitable than the
Moon or Mars ever will be.

~~~
lucb1e
Why is that? I imagine a lot of species would have to move too, but basically,
if we all move north (or south, depending on where you are relative to the
equator)... why doesn't that work?

~~~
bagels
The temperature range. The atmosphere held in by the natural magnetic field.
The liquid water.

~~~
refurb
_The atmosphere held in by the natural magnetic field._

Please explain. I always thought it was gravity.

~~~
lobster_johnson
Mars has nearly no atmosphere because the solar wind blew it away. The
magnetic field acts as a shield that prevents the atmosphere from leaking out
into space, basically [1].

[1]
[http://m.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cluster/Earth_...](http://m.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cluster/Earth_s_magnetic_field_provides_vital_protection)

------
rbosinger
I like to imagine the Earth fighting back in some crazy Jumanji way. Plants
start growing super fast and breaking apart buildings... stretching out into
the sky to suck up the carbon.

~~~
PhearTheCeal
Silliness. We're not hurting the earth. We're just making it a bit less
hospitable for us. It's bad, but it's not the apocalypse that some will have
you believe.

~~~
rybosome
> It's bad, but it's not the apocalypse that some will have you believe.

Maybe. Your statement masks the deeply serious potential consequences.

Yes, it's not going to look like fire-and-brimstone hell on earth; volcanoes
spewing ash into the darkened, lightning-filled sky, mile-high tidal waves
drowning major population centers, the ground splitting open and swallowing
cities whole...

But what happens if another migrant wave washes over Europe consisting of
starving people whose land is inhospitable due to drought-induced crop
failure? One large wave from Syria has provoked considerable social unrest and
has contributed to the rise of multiple nationalist, far-right parties. How
much more instability can that region take before a war occurs? What would a
world war in the age of nuclear weapons look like?

Or, what if we hit the scientifically-plausible scenario of runaway climate
change resulting from multiple positive feedback loops triggering melting of
methane ice on the seafloor, and arctic thaw allowing decomposition of large
amounts of organic matter? If the average global temperature rises by 6
degrees C, the hottest days will be so hot that they will have the potential
to outright kill many staple crops. In addition to the sea-level rise, large
areas of land will be uninhabitable due to heat. As with the above scenario,
what happens when large groups of people are starving and can no longer
survive where they are currently located? How much instability can human
civilization tolerate?

...and that's not even the worst case scenario. What if the temperature
_really_ takes off and we experience an anoxic event[0], where the oxygen
level in the ocean depletes and they begin emitting highly poisonous hydrogen-
sulfide gas? Such an event is linked to high temperatures, high oceanic
acidity and high levels of atmospheric CO2. This event would kill the majority
of life in the ocean, and due to the combination of the hydrogen-sulfide gas'
effect on land animals plus the damage it would cause to the ozone layer
resulting in increased UV exposure, this would kill the majority of life on
land, too.

0:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_event)

------
phs318u
Australia's short-lived carbon tax reduced emissions. Despite the overblown
media claims at the time, it didn't impose a massive cost on consumers, nor
hugely impact GDP.

[https://ccep.crawford.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/publica...](https://ccep.crawford.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/publication/ccep_crawford_anu_edu_au/2014-07/ccep1411.pdf)

~~~
wott
What happened then? Right-wing came back to the affairs?

~~~
ClassyJacket
The Liberal party (the conservatives) got in power denying climate change, and
one of their major policies was scrapping the carbon tax ("It's costing you
money!!"). They also defunded CSIRO.

Another policy they successfully passed was a law that makes it illegal to
report on abuse, including sexual abuse, of children if that child happens to
be a refugee.

We also were in the middle of building a taxpayer-owned, nationwide fibre-to-
the-home network. It wasn't just a theoretical plan, it was in progress, and
17% of homes already have it. They cancelled that, too, instead opting to
spend the same amount of time and more money on DSL, and have actually been
installing _slower_ internet in some people's homes than they already had.

Most electorates were very happy with these policies. In July this year they
were voted in for a second term.

------
soreal
Permanently*

*Until we act to start removing CO2 from the atmosphere through various carbon capture methods

~~~
oxide
is carbon capture actually viable? a completely carbon-free capturing method
sounds like perpetual motion or free energy.

~~~
seanalltogether
Like trees?

~~~
labster
The terrestrial biosphere makes a terrible place to store carbon, as you
really can't store that much of it, and eventually it has a tendency to burn
and release it all back. If you wanted to grow a bunch of forests/crops, and
then bury them and grow new stuff I guess that might work. But not as well as
pumping new CO₂ underground or into the deep ocean (below the carbon
compensation depth, where it will dissolve existing carbonates and buffer the
ocean).

Also forests make the Earth's surface darker, thus decreasing albedo and
potentially increasing global warming.

~~~
7952
Or just use the wood to build things! Has the added benefit of reducing the
use of carbon intensive materials like concrete and steel.

~~~
labster
Good idea. Now tell me how you plan to offset the carbon emissions from land
use change... You weren't planning on building dense housing with wood, were
you?

~~~
hinkley
There's a group doing that.

They can make some pretty impressive engineered beams these days. The fire
intensity required to destroy them, they claim, also structurally damages
concrete, so it's not the issue most of us take it to be.

------
weatherlight
This makes me so unbelievably sad.

~~~
rndmind
No do not be sad, fortunately we have a robust, state of the art, highly
refined and efficient device for removing cO2 from the atmosphere, they're
called trees.

~~~
Neeek
Too bad they're only good for about 30 years or so before falling over and
leaking it all back out again, and nobody is going to be seeing it as good RoI
to bury them in the ground unfortunately.

~~~
rndmind
Right, well I don't know what you mean, leaking it back out. Surely not
atmospheric carbon dioxide. At any rate, bamboo also.

~~~
Neeek
When the tree is decomposed by bacteria and fungus, most of the sequestered
carbon is released back in to the atmosphere. Sorry for the vague wording :)

------
cpeterso
In the post-apocalyptic science fiction novel _The Death of Grass_ (and the
movie _No Blade of Grass_ ), a virus threatens all the world's grass crops.
Some governments begin plotting to nuke (their own!) cities to reduce food
demand.

There is a worrying analogy to global warming, where governments might
consider nuclear war to reduce carbon emissions (from other countries). Though
at the point global warming is really bad, it would probably be too late to
make much difference.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Grass](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Grass)

~~~
zbyte64
And as a bonus you would get a Nuclear winter.

------
bovermyer
Just because we're a proto-Arrakis doesn't mean we need to panic. But we
should really start investing in spice.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
No, switch to Heinlein. We should be investing in boost, and becoming belters.

------
olivierlacan
Worth reposting: What can a technologist do about climate change?
[http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/](http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/)
(2015)

------
4684499
The Newsroom s03e03 climate change interview:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM0uZ9mfOUI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM0uZ9mfOUI)

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Migrating to emissions-free or at least CO2-neutral power sources is slow and
expensive, but it must be done, of course.

What I wonder though, is why we can't capture our CO2 output and prevent it
reaching the atmosphere in the first place. Is it simply prohibitively
expensive or difficult?

~~~
Fej
There are no market forces which would bring CO2 capturing technologies to the
forefront. i.e. it's cheaper just to dump it in the atmosphere.

Something like a carbon tax would very quickly make CO2 capture relevant.

------
chukye
What a common people can do to help to fix that?

~~~
SamPhillips
Some ideas for positive action:

"What can a technologist do about climate change?"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10622615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10622615)

(Spoiler: Be engaged, be influential, use your high-leverage superpowers)

------
legulere
And it's not only climate change but there's also a negative effect on human
cognition: [https://thinkprogress.org/exclusive-elevated-co2-levels-
dire...](https://thinkprogress.org/exclusive-elevated-co2-levels-directly-
affect-human-cognition-new-harvard-study-shows-2748e7378941#.eefaybx2e)

------
sndean
I haven't researched this enough to know how stupid it is, but, just throwing
it out there:

Why don't we make giant phytoplankton farms? [1]

[1] [http://nationalgeographic.org/activity/save-the-plankton-
bre...](http://nationalgeographic.org/activity/save-the-plankton-breathe-
freely/)

------
asitdhal
North America, Europe and China are slowly wiping out everyone and their own
future generation.

------
techbio
Scare tactics/propaganda. Whether the article is rightly or wrongly indicating
something significant, I can't tell.

1\. Chart shows carbon dioxide going from light red to dark red. The color
scale is wildly different from the measurements (388ppm -> 404ppm -- 4%;
assuredly higher, but not their drastically darkening RGB depiction
(247,211,211) -> (134,3,8)

EDIT: It has been pointed out to me the percentage change is irrelevant. I'm a
fairly ignorant outside observer of climate science with an interest in the
presentation of this material. I saw
[http://xkcd.com/1732/](http://xkcd.com/1732/) but many people will assume
heuristic from [http://xkcd.com/605/](http://xkcd.com/605/) I don't think
fossil fuel is going away until prices are adjusted to the externalities.
Thanks for the downvote, made me think a little harder about the importance
of--(jeez, it is hard to say "politically correct" with sounding sarcastic).

2\. Cherry picked a solitary data source: "At Mauna Loa Observatory, the
world’s marquee site for monitoring carbon dioxide" \-- Is there only one?
Couldn't the article have provided a global average?

3\. Animated image (with unhelpful caption) provides a little movie that looks
like the northern hemisphere was on fire for the month of March 10 years ago.

This is terrible stuff. Not for passing the "symbolic threshold", but for the
beautifully crafted subtexts in presentation.

HN, I welcome these threads.

~~~
yongjik
For comparison, when Boston got record snow and everybody froze to death in
early 2015, the temperature was:

> ... the average temperature [of Boston] in February [2015] was 19.0 °F (−7.2
> °C), which was 12.7 °F (7.1 °C) below the 1981–2010 normal, making it the
> second-coldest month of any month all-time, behind February 1934.

So the average temperature in Feb 2015 was 266K, only 2.6% below the normal
value of 273K. Sheesh.

Measuring change in absolute percentage _is_ misleading, when your chance of
survival strongly depends on it being in a narrow prescribed range.

(You die if your body temperature increases by 2%.)

~~~
WillPostForFood
_(You die if your body temperature increases by 2%.)_

98.6 * 1.02 = 100.57, not life threatening.

~~~
ksaun
98.6 F = 558.3 R; 1.02 * 558.3 R = 569.5 R; 569.5 R = 109.8 F

