Main Contributors of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide?

Question

I'm wondering what the main contributors of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide are? Volcanos? Oceans? Forest Fires? Please cite your sources as well.

Answer 1

The main net contributor is combustion of fossil fuel followed by forest fires and  volcanos (volcanos only 1/150th of human emissions).

Oceans are currently a sink and I hope it will stay that way for a long time. Worth to notice is that in a warmer and drier climate the forest fires are likely to increase and hence become a bigger source of carbon emissions.

http://www.nofc.forestry.ca/fire/researc...

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12...

Answer 2

Tricky question.

The main contributor of CO2 is respiration from living things.  However, living things are also the main consumers (sinks) of CO2.  In the absence of technology, they would balance out.  (The oceans have a similar balance).  If sources were greater than sinks CO2 would simply increase a bit until balance was restored.

We're messing that up, by burning fossil fuels.  That's what's responsible for the INCREASE in CO2 levels.

Look at this graph.

http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/cgi-bin/wdcgg/qu...

The little squiggles are nature doing its' thing. CO2 falls a bit during summer when plants are active, and rises during the winter. The huge increase is us, burning fossil fuels. The scientists can actually show that the increased CO2 in the air comes from burning fossil fuels by using "isotopic ratios" to identify that CO2.  The natural carbon cycle buried carbon in fossil fuels over a very long time, little bit by little bit. We dig them up and burn them, real fast.  That's a problem.  More, including the numbers, here:

http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...

Man is upsetting the balance of nature.  We need to fix that.

Answer 3

you'll be surprised to know that your car can make so much pollution in a week that the gas can fill a whole 10 barells

so calculate

Answer 4

fossil fuels

Answer 5

top artificial contributors are power stations, cars and commercial flights.

Answer 6

We can start these questions from the forming of CO2. Carbon was The emission gas (waste) it is forming by a lot of product such as vehicle and the fossil fuel as the main contributor. When the carbon was discharge to the air (O2) it is same as consumes your own breath and make your feel giddy.