Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Climate: Two Studies Show That Glacial Melt and Global Warming Could Continue for Centuries - Ecocentric - TIME.com
Carbon dioxide, however, can stay in the atmosphere for centuries or even longer, so warming doesn't end when the emissions do. The damage is already done—and continues for the next 900 years.
YouTube - CO2 Experiment Video
This video shows that a candle floating on water, burning in the air inside a glass, converts the oxygen in the air to CO2. The water rises in the glass because the CO2, which replaced the oxygen, is quickly dissolved in the water. The water contains calcium ions Ca++, because we initially dissolved calcium hydroxide Ca(OH)2 in the water. The CO2 produced during oxygen burning reacts with the calcium ions to produce solid calcium carbonate CaCO3, which is easily visible as a whitening of the water when we switch on a flashlight. This little kitchen experiment demonstrates the inorganic carbon cycle in nature. The oceans take out our anthropogenic CO2 gas by quickly dissolving it as bicarbonate HCO3-, which in turn forms solid calcium carbonate either organically in calcareous organisms or precipitates inorganically. The CaCO3 is precipitating and not dissolving during this process, because buffering in the ocean maintains a stable pH around 8. We also see that CO2 reacts very fast with the water, contrary to the claim by the IPCC that it takes 50 - 200 years for this to happen. Try this for yourself in your kitchen!

1 comment:

Steve Koch said...

Very cool video.