Re:Carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere hit record high in May
by gregallan on Friday June 07, 2019 @12:14AM
(#20121622)
If you're saying that moles/m^3 of CO2 might be constant while pmm of CO2 is increasing, that implies that atmospheric pressure at sea level is dropping. And it isn't.
Re:Carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere hit record high in May
by nonbel on Friday June 07, 2019 @01:09AM
(#20121808)
I'm not saying it is constant. Where do you see that?
Also, who says the pressure isn't dropping? Can that even be measured to detect such a small difference?
And the volume and/or temperature of the troposphere could change instead.
Finally, what about water vapor compensating?
Re:Carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere hit record high in May
by rabidrat on Friday June 07, 2019 @01:01AM
(#20121773)
The temperature is increasing, though...
Re:Carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere hit record high in May
by yongjik on Friday June 07, 2019 @01:33AM
(#20121903)
"Atmospheric pressure" is basically "total mass of air on top of us, per surface area". So it doesn't (directly) depend on temperature.
Edit: Sorry, should be "total weight of air". My physics is rusty.
Re:Carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere hit record high in May
by nonbel on Friday June 07, 2019 @01:49AM
(#20121963)
If you took the same mass of air and put it in two tropospheres, one is 2 km high and the other 20 km high. Would there be the same surface pressure?
Re:Carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere hit record high in May
by yongjik on Friday June 07, 2019 @01:59AM
(#20121997)
You cannot put air at 2 km and then at 20 km high! Of course the second layer will just flow down until it's supported by the first layer, which is in turn supported by the ground. So your question doesn't really make physical sense.
In fact people have been extracting N2 from the atmosphere at scale for ~120 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process
And apparently O2 has been depleting as well: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5138252/
We are at the point where gradeschoolers are questioning why the tables of atmospheric constituents don't add up to 100%:
>Two recent reliable sources cited here have total atmospheric compositions, including trace molecules, that exceed 100%. They are Allen's Astrophysical Quantities[5] (2000, 100.001241343%) and CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics[4] (2016–2017, 100.004667%), which cites Allen's Astrophysical Quantities. Both are used as references in this article. Both exceed 100% because their CO2 values were increased to 345 ppmv, without changing their other constituents to compensate. This is made worse by the April 2019 CO 2 value, which is 413.32 ppmv. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth#cite_note-...