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Could we possibly have too much carbon dioxide in our atmosphere? Theoretically, it is possible, but highly unlikely. An object larger than the earth could also theoretically hit us. It could happen. Chances are, it won’t happen though.
Scientists believe that when the earth first formed an atmosphere, CO2, methane, and sulfur compounds were common, along with water vapor. There is little doubt that the levels of carbon dioxide were many times greater than they are today. From this noxious mixture, the first life sprang up on the planet, the simplest plants like algae, while the CO2 helped to keep the earth from becoming a frozen ball in space at the same time.
Today, plant life still forms the main basis of the food chain for most animal life on Earth. In order to survive, plants usually require CO2, which they combine with the energy of sunlight to produce sugars and oxygen. The oxygen is needed for animals to survive.
Most carbon dioxide, though, is absorbed by the oceans and by rocks. If all of this were released into the atmosphere, it would probably lead to extinction like nothing Earth has ever experienced. There is no known mechanism, by which this would ever happen, though.
Instead, the oceans are not saturated, and if CO2 levels rise, more is absorbed. If ice melts, the volume of water capable of absorbing carbon dioxide increases, in turn lowering the amount in the atmosphere. It is quite interesting what else happens with increased levels of this gas.
Since the carbon dioxide is necessary for plant life, it stands to reason that increased levels mean an increase in plant growth. This is exactly what has happened in our past, according to the fossil records. High CO2 levels correspond with times of extreme plant production.
Earth has a self-sustaining system. The more of this gas is produced, the more plant life there is to take advantage of it. Looking at the major causes of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, the biggest is volcanic eruptions. To get an idea of the scope, a moderate eruption produces more CO2 than man is capable of producing in a year. Yet, there are about 13-17 volcanoes erupting somewhere in the world at any given time.
The next leading cause of CO2 is the decay of plant matter, including but not limited to forest fire. As plants decay, they release carbon dioxide, and carbon. The latter easily bonds with oxygen, to make carbon dioxide. Since this encourages plant growth, it is taken in by developing plants and can lead to explosive growth, again lowering the CO2 levels.
This all explains how carbon dioxide is used, and why it is so important if we want to continue to survive. Ultimately, though, the reason there won’t likely be too much CO2 is because there is a finite about of both carbon and oxygen on Earth. This means that only a certain amount of CO2 can be produced, and this hasn’t changed much over the billions of years the earth has been around.
It is a probability that as long as the earth has water, oceans, plant life, and rocks, all of which absorb carbon dioxide, there will never be too much of it.
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Why we will never have too much carbon dioxide in our atmosphere: | Sourced From Helium |
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Why we will never have too much carbon dioxide in our atmosphere: | Sourced From Helium |
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Debunk Alert – from the United States Geological Survey
Volcanic versus anthropogenic CO2 emissions
Do the Earth’s volcanoes emit more CO2 than human activities? Research findings indicate that the answer to this frequently asked question is a clear and unequivocal, “No.” Human activities, responsible for some 36,300 million metric tons of CO2 emissions in 2008 [Le Quéré et al., 2009], release at least a hundred times more CO2 annually than all the world’s degassing subaerial and submarine volcanoes (Gerlach, 2010).
The half dozen or so published estimates of the global CO2 emission rate for all degassing subaerial and submarine volcanoes lie in a range from 132 million (minimum) to 378 million (maximum) metric tons per year (Gerlach, 1991; Varekamp et al., 1992; Allard, 1992; Sano and Williams, 1996; Marty and Tolstikhin, 1998; Kerrick, 2001). If estimate medians and author-preferred estimates of these studies are used to lessen the influence of outlier estimates, the range is restricted to about 150-270 million metric tons of CO2 per year. The current anthropogenic CO2 emission rate of some 36,300-million metric tons of CO2 per year is about 100 to 300 times larger than these estimated ranges for global volcanic CO2 emissions.
In recent times, about 50-60 volcanoes are normally active on the Earth’s subaerial terrain. One of these is Kīlauea volcano in Hawaii, which has an annual baseline CO2 output of about 3.1 million metric tons per year [Gerlach et al., 2002]. It would take a huge addition of volcanoes to the subaerial landscape—the equivalent of an extra 11,700 Kīlauea volcanoes—to scale up the global volcanic CO2 emission rate to the anthropogenic CO2 emission rate. Similarly, scaling up the volcanic rate to the current anthropogenic rate by adding more submarine volcanoes would require the addition of over 100 mid-oceanic ridge systems to the sea floor.
Global volcanic CO2 emission estimates are uncertain, but there is little doubt that the anthropogenic CO2 emission rate is more than a hundred times greater than the global volcanic CO2 emission rate.
More information
•Volcanic gases in the atmosphere: Volcanic Gases and Their Effects
•Effects of Volcanic Sulfur Aerosols.
•Volcanic Gas Pollution in Hawaii.
•Information about Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland.
References
Allard, P., 1992, Global emissions of helium-3 by subaerial volcanism: Geophysical Research Letters, v. 19, n. 14, p. 1479-1481.
Gerlach, T.M., 2010, Volcanic versus anthropogenic carbon dioxide: The missing science: EARTH, v. 55, n. 7, p. 87.
Gerlach, T.M., 1991, Present-day CO2 emissions from volcanoes: Transactions of the American Geophysical Union (EOS), v. 72, p. 249 and 254-255.
Gerlach, T.M., McGee, K.A., Elias, T., Sutton, A.J., and Doukas, M.P., 2002, Carbon dioxide emission rate of Kīlauea Volcano: Implications for primary magma and the summit reservoir: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 107, n. B9, p. ECV3-1 – ECV3-15, 2189, doi: 10.1029/2001JB000407.
Kerrick, D.M., 2001, Present and past nonanthropogenic CO2 degassing from the solid Earth: Reviews of Geophysics, v. 39, n. 4, p. 565-585.
Le Quéré, C., et al., 2009, Trends in the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide: Nature Geoscience, v. 297, n. 12, p. 831-836, doi:10.1038/ngeo689.
Marty, B., and I.N. Tolstikhin, 1998, CO2 fluxes from mid-ocean ridges, arcs and plumes: Chemical Geology, v. 145, p. 233-248.
Sano, Y. and Williams, S.N., 1996, Fluxes of mantle and subducted carbon along convergent plate boundaries: Geophysical Research Letters, v. 23, n. 20, p. 2749-2752.
Varekamp, J.C.R., Kreulen, R., Poorter, R.P.E., and Van Bergen, M.J., 1992, Carbon sources and arc volcanism, with implications for the carbon cycle: Terra Nova, v. 4, p. 363-373.
The logic behind the arguments/ statements are valid (plants require C02, C02 is stored with the earth, humans need 02). Equilibrium must also be considered. Too much of of a ‘good’ thing may not actually be a good thing. There is a tipping point and if you use our neighboring planets it becomes evident. Artificial introduction of carbon into the atmosphere may disrupt that equilibrium we currently find ourselves in. Then again, it may not.
We shall discuss more in a few 100 000 years. See ya then.
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