Surprise CO2 Rise May Speed Global Warming

Scientists think a recent acceleration in CO2 increases could be a sign of imminent global warming leading to global weather disruptions and faster melting of the ice caps.

There has been a sharp leap in the atmospheric levels of CO2 gases leading to fears that global warming may be speeding up. At the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, readings have averaged an annual increase of 1.3 to 1.6 parts per million (ppm). They have now jumped to over 2.0ppm. That increase is a function of the amount of CO2 that has not been absorbed by the forests and oceans of the world. In 1958, the CO2 data showed 315ppm; by 1993 it was up to 357.04ppm; in 2003 it was up to 375.64ppm. There have been peaks in the past where the readings have gone above 2.0ppm, but these have always been associated with El Nino conditions when the Pacific warms up and cannot absorb the usual amount of CO2. However, from 2001 to 2002 the increase was 2.08ppm, and from 2002 to 2003 the increase was 2.54ppm. Neither of these increases occurred in El Nino years, and there has been no sudden leap in emissions to explain it. Dr. Charles Keeling, U.C. San Diego physicist and head of the observatory, said the rise was real and worrying as it might represent the beginnings of a feedback. This long-feared climate change ?EUR??,,????'??feedback?EUR??,,????'?? mechanism results when global warming causes alterations that weaken the earth's natural systems and that, in turn, causes the warming to increase even more rapidly than before. This weakening, which is caused by the warming itself, reduces the earth's ability to remove huge amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere by absorbing it annually in the carbon sinks of its forests and oceans. Such a development would mean the worldwide droughts, agricultural failures, melting ice, sea-level rise, increased weather turbulence and flooding would all arrive on much shorter time scales than previously estimated and the world would have a much shorter time to coordinate its response. Replenishing the forests and grasslands may help reduce the CO2 levels. Studies done by the US Department of Energy in Wisconsin's northwoods in 1997 showed that trees grow 30-percent faster when they are exposed to extra CO2. Their leaves convert the gas to sugar that goes down to the roots becoming a natural part of the soil. However there is question regarding how much of a solution trees can provide if emission reduction is not part of the equation.

Trees absorb CO2 and research on trees in nature exposed to elevated CO2 show an 30 percent increase in trunk diameter and leaf canopy as they absorb the gas and return it to the soil.