Of Emissions and CO2
9 hours ago Willis Eschenbach
The most excellent reef and ocean scientist Jennifer Marohazy put up a Facebook post recently on the lack of much effect on the atmosphere CO2 levels from the 2020 emissions drop due to COVID. She says this shows human CO2 emissions have very little effect on atmospheric CO2 levels. However, I fear her graph is greatly misleading.
The problem is that she is showing the full range of two related but very different variables. Let me see if I can clear up the confusion.
To begin with, we need to change the CO2 emissions to parts per million by volume (ppmv) of CO2. To do that, we need to divide the gigatonnage (billions of tonnes) of CO2 by 8.71 gigatonnes of CO2 emissions per each 1 ppmv increase.
Next, we need to account for the fact that the earth is constantly absorbing and sequestering CO2. I find there’s an excellent fit to be had by using the following procedure. The underlying assumption is that every year, a certain small percentage of “excess” airborne CO2 is being sequestered by natural processes, with the rest of prior emissions remaining in the air. What is “excess CO2“? Well, it is the amount in excess of some undetermined baseline, which we expect to be on the order of the historical value of about 285 ppmv.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/04/04/of-emissions-and-co2/
