How do environmentalist measure amounts of CO2?

Question

are there stations around the world measuring samples? how to they get this data and then say the world is coming to an end? how accurate is this proposal?

Answer 1

Environmentalists use specialist equipment all around the world to measure the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. They usually use special filters to filter out the particulates and a computer will calculate the parts per million.

And as far as I know, no one said the world was coming to an end...!

If anyone does then really, I dont think that their proposal is very accurate!

It has been proposed that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased and is still increasing and this is very accurate as the environmentalists who make the proposals have the evidence to back it up. However, it is very uncertain whether this increased amount of CO2 is going to have any effect on the world (climate etc) in any way.

Answer 2

To extend the question: governments tell us that our fuel burning activities cause increase in CO2 and global warming etc.

Did it occur to anybody to calculate additional CO2 produced by increased human population? In or around 1900 the total population of Earth was around 1,650,000,000 (ave) now it is 6,625,000,000 (in mid 2007). To me that makes additional 5,000,000,000 humans inhaling air and exhaling more CO2 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. I did some rough calculations and the CO2 exhaled by "new" (since 1900) population gave me an equivalent of CO2 emissions of 500,000,000 cars (that is 500 million).

My guess that the only reason all governments are keeping quite about that is because they can not (yet) tax us for living and breathing, but they can tax us for using fuels...

Answer 3

The reference for worldwide CO2 concentrations is the Mauna Loa station in Hawaii:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauna_Loa_O...

The measurement of the CO2 emitted by different human activities is done on a different basis. It is done with:

- the quantity of fuels used

- the carbon content of the used fuels

- the determination of the carbon which has not been combusted (in soot and ashes).

Other sources of CO2 other than fossil fuel combustion are also taken into account:

- process CO2 in the industry

- deforestation, etc...

The roughly 30% difference between both (measured emitted CO2 by human activities and increased CO2 in the atmosphere) points out at an increased CO2 absorbtion by the oceans. This is confirmed by the acidification of oceans. Oceans however tend to absorb less and less CO2.