Carbon Dioxide (CO₂)

CO₂ is the basis of life on Earth. While CO₂ courses through the planetary fabric of earth, water, plants and the atmosphere, it also runs through our lives as the defining anthropogenic imprint on the world humanity has created. Small amounts of CO₂ added to the atmosphere since the industrial revolution have enhanced surface warming and the dynamics of the Earth system. Small changes in the climate system can wield a host of disruptions to the lifeways of society involving food and water availability, energy production and our economic systems. The CO₂ profile as a greenhouse gas (GHG) is shown below with other GHG’s and their warming potential, atmospheric lifetime, molecular weight and radiative forcing. Note that a full GHG budget would include measurements for all of the gases listed, however, rarely are such full budgets measured in practice. PαC intends to increase the number of GHG’s directly measured by the System of Systems network resulting in a multi-gas GHG emissions measurement and reduction approach.

Additional Reading

Campbell, J. E., J. A. Berry, U. Seibt, Steven J. Smith, S. A. Montzka, T. Launois, S. Belviso, L. Bopp, and M. Laine. “Large historical growth in global terrestrial gross primary production.” Nature 544, no. 7648 (2017): 84-87.

Lovenduski, Nicole S., and Gordon B. Bonan. “Reducing uncertainty in projections of terrestrial carbon uptake.” Environmental Research Letters 12, no. 4 (2017): 044020.

Ussiri, David AN, and Rattan Lal. “Introduction to Global Carbon Cycling: An Overview of the Global Carbon Cycle.” In Carbon Sequestration for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation, pp. 61-76. Springer International Publishing, 2017.

http://www.globalcarbonatlas.org/en/content/welcome-carbon-atlas

https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch7s7-3.html