One of the arguments that has been used to support the claim that humans are causing the earth's climate to change goes something like this:
The earth is warming as evidenced by retreating glaciers. Increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by humans, could account for that warming. We know that gases like carbon dioxide have been produced in greater quantities in the last two centuries by human activity. Therefore, human activity must be causing the earth to warm.
A study reported in Science News, however, kicks the props out from under this argument. The study shows that, despite increases in CO2 production since the industrial revolution, the accumulated CO2 in the earth's atmosphere has not changed in the last 160 years and thus cannot be the cause of whatever climate change there has been over that span:
To assess whether the airborne fraction [of CO2] is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol reanalyzed available atmospheric carbon dioxide and emissions data since 1850 and considers the uncertainties in the data. In contradiction to some recent studies, he finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades.
The CO2 that is emitted into the atmosphere is reabsorbed by green plants, particularly algae in the oceans. If Knorr's findings are correct it seems that the earth has a far greater capacity to handle the carbon dioxide load than had previously been thought. Before we spend trillions of dollars to fix a problem that doesn't exist, i.e. overloading the atmosphere with CO2, perhaps we should look elsewhere for the cause of our retreating glaciers.
RLC
